Green Pen Of Johnny's
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: Find out why Johnny carries his green pens with him everywhere he goes. An airborne disaster stuns the city of Torrance.


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Nine

9. Green Pen of Johnny's Season One- Episode 9 Short summary-  
Find out why Johnny carries his green pens with him everywhere he goes. An airborne disaster stuns the city of Torrance.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

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Long Summary-  
Station 51 answers an explosives factory fire where Johnny's injured. Roy goes inside after a report of a little girl on a scaffolding inside the burning warehouse. DeSoto takes refuge in an elevator shaft with several other firefighters when a demolitions crew proves to be the only people left who could save them from the fire. Gage spends the night at Rampart with a little girl from the factory fire and her green markers. Craig Brice shows up at the station to be his replacement. An airliner jet suffers a wing hydraulic problem in mid air and crashes in Rampart's parking lot, severely damaging the hospital. Gage and his child roommate fight for their lives, while escaping the fumes using the back halls of Rampart. Station 51 responds to the disaster scene and begins emergency triage. Dixie's found hurt in the hospital from flying glass. Brice's station crew is discovered missing at the jet crash scene.  
Johnny tries to climb down the side of Rampart using a fire hose to save himself and the little girl. Boot, the dog, discovers them trapped by located a scent on a green marker pen and summons help and rescue.  
The little girl visits the gang later at the station and receives a medal for saving Gage's life by giving him atropine.

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The Story Unfolds...

Season One, Episode Nine.. Green Pen Of Johnny's

Debut Launch: 1 January 2004.

From:  
Subject : A Partner's Choice Date: Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:27 pm

It was only hours from the end of a bad shift for the guys of 51's. A-shift, as usual.

Johnny and Chet where arguing, and the rest of the guys were watching, when the tone went off.

It was gonna be a big one. It was a four alarmer, a warehouse.

They arrived on scene, met by the day supervisor.  
"We have three workers missing in there!"

"Ok, we'll handle it. What kind of stuff is in there?"

"We ship high explosives to all kinds of contractors for demolition work. If that place goes, it will level three city blocks."

"Oh my G*d." The captain calls in to dispatch. Then he calls Roy and Johnny over. They all talk. "Dispatch this is 51. You better send me another alarm. We have an explosives factory involved. Also, police, for evacuation of at least four blocks all around our location. "

##Ten four, 51.##

"Ok, now. Hey.. Roy, John! Come here. You tell these men where the missing employees were working at last. "

"What do we got, Cap? " Roy asked.

"High explosives and missing employees times three."

"We saw them last in the packing room on the south end of the building over there."

"Ok . Thanks. You know get your people back?"

The man ran to where his other employees where standing to wait.

Meanwhile, he said to both Roy and Johnny as well.  
"How do you wanna work this?"

"We'll go in, I guess. I don't see any other way, Cap."

"Ok.... But be careful. I don't want you two getting into anything you can't handle, ok ? Be careful."

"Yeah. "

They suit up and go in. Just as they reach the area where the missing people were last seen, there is a victim.

A woman.

Roy grabs her. Johnny tells him to get her out. He would see if he could spot anyone else and be right behind him.

Then, just as they are starting to move, there is a large explosion that rocks the building. And Johnny sees danger as he looks up, and pushes Roy to safety along with the victim just as part of the ceiling came down.

Johnny couldn't get out of the way in time and is trapped under all the debris. Roy hands the victim off to another team of fire fighters who come over to them just then. He knows there should be another squad outside. He instructs the men to take the victim outside. Then he grabs his radio and says into it.  
"Engine 51! This is HT 51! We have a code I in here! Fire fighter trapped under a fallen ceiling. We need help. "

Then Roy removed as much of the debris as he could to get to Johnny.

He got to him finally, but he was unconscious. -----------------------------------------------------------------

No photo attachments.

******************************************************* From : "Cassidy Meyers"  
Subject : Fireman Down... Date :Thu, 09 Oct 2003 23:30:54 +0400 "Johnny? Can you hear me?!" he shouted over the roaring din of fire around him.

Roy's HT crackled and drowned out any possible reply that might have come from him.

It was Cap. ##Hang in there, Roy! I've got Lopez, Stoker and Kelly en route to you now with just a long board. It's the fastest way of getting him out of there! ##

Roy thumbed his reply, crouching protectively over his partner's face and chest to ward off the remnants of the ceiling that still spit burning embers down around them from the upper story.  
"10-4. Tell them to follow my rope! I'm about thirty yards from the east entrance near a toppled fork lift!" DeSoto turned all of his attention to finding positive life signs on Johnny.

Roy's first move was to pull off one of his hose dampened gloves to slide a couple of fingers inside his partner's air mask to feel for signs of breathing.

Immediately, they moistened from the stress related puffs of warm breath whistling rapidly in and out of Johnny's mouth. Roy bent closer and he saw that there was a trickle of blood running profusely from Gage's nose, trailing rivers onto the sweaty cracked face plexiglass covering it. To his dismay, there was no sign of animation, at all, active on Johnny's face.

"Gotta drain some of that out now." DeSoto turned Gage as a unit onto his side to lay him against his own knees to await the help soon to arrive. He mumbled, keeping his free fingers on the artery beating weakly in Johnny's neck.  
"Just hang in there, Junior. You're doing fine." Roy sliced away the straps of the air bottle from Johnny's back using his holster's utility knife to get him set for the spine board in two swift slashes.

Then he kicked Gage's half empty yellow air cylinder clear from its usual position until it rested near both their heads.

"Roy?! We're here! How is he?" came Kelly's muffled shout. It was followed by the angry hissing of fire as it was beaten dark by an inch and a half's violent water stream.

Marco and Stoker came running to grab Gage by the shoulders and legs to help Roy keep a tight alignment as Chet slid the board as close against his back as he could.

"He's breathing, you guys. But he's really out. Watch his neck! He's got some fast facial bleeding." DeSoto snapped through his glass.

"I'll be careful...! I'm always careful.."  
Kelly countered first gruff, then calming at DeSoto, as he tried not to let the worry in his eyes show through his mask.

Chet knocked away Gage's useless helmet with an elbow while he got a good grip with his gloves on either side of Johnny's head as they rolled him gingerly, to once again supine, and adjusted him in a centering line onto the board.  
Stoker grabbed the two sand bags they had brought to keep Johnny's head even more stable under the chin and forehead straps, and he handed them off to Roy for him to apply.

Lopez quickly dropped the hose that had cleared a cool wet path of black through the flaming warehouse and handily got a good grip on the board.  
"I got it snuffed. We gotta move now."

"Ok.. He's set." Roy gasped. "On, three,  
we'll lift him. Ready? Three.." he rushed,  
tossing Johnny's air bottle onto his partner's dusty knees carelessly. He made sure that Gage's shattered air mask remained in place.  
::It's still doing its job keeping out the smoke.::

Scared for their lives, the four men from Station 51 carried out their fifth as the warehouse rumbled in threat around them with lurid fire while dodging many destabilizing burning crates as the boxes fell from their berths around them.

Finally, they cleared out into the night air.

Cap met them on the run and paced along side of them as he peeled off Gage's air mask to reopen his airway with a careful jaw thrust move. Another hand buried itself under Gage's slightly smoking jacket. "He's still moving air ok.. I got the 02 and biophone connected and already hooked up, and an ambulance will be here in four minutes. Roy, did you guys see anybody else in there?"

Roy blinked in shock when he realized that he had nothing to report on the others beyond his own firefighting crew's well being. "Well, I- I.. "

Stoker saved his behind. "Cap, we did a sweep search the whole time we water blasted over to Roy and Johnny's location. We saw no one else trapped. I can guarantee that the ground floor's clear.."

"Are you absolutely certain?"

"As sure as the fact you're standing in front of me." Mike confirmed, stepping over a yellow burn sheet spread over the ground.

"Ok..." Cap sighed, taking Stoker's update seriously.

They all helped carry Johnny's long board over to the equipment laid out on the street and soon they were joined by two other county firemen to speed up the process.

Cap grimaced when he saw the large amount of blood continuing its flow from Johnny's nostrils. But he had other worries still to deal with. Hank lifted his head to shout aloud towards the avenue, radio-less, because his hands were still full maintaining a clear air passage on Johnny. "I want another scout team in the warehouse immediately to search the second floor. Under no circumstances is any one going back in without a hose backup!" he roared.

He saw Engine 10's captain take over his commanding order to take rapid steps to implement it. From the corner of his eye, Hank saw a new team arrow towards the burning building dragging a hose at their tail. ::Good going. If those people are still alive in there, we'll find em.::

Under Hank's hands, Gage gagged just as Kelly,  
Lopez, Roy, and Stoker lowered his board to the ground. Cap saw Gage's involuntary stomach muscles begin to rock back and forth under his burned blue shirt. "Flip him! He's getting ill.." he warned.

They rapidly log rolled Gage onto his side as Johnny began to vomit up the blood that he had taken in from his sinuses. "He's screwing up his airway real bad.." Kelly said un-necessarily, showing his current high fright for his crewmate.  
"He's fine now, Chet. Just relax, ok? I got it all.." Roy said, applying a last bit of suction inside Johnny's mouth from the unit on the resuscitator apparatus.  
The smothering liquid gurgling inside the tube gave way to a smooth patent hissing sound of sucking air so he withdrew the wand.  
"There. We just gotta get him on some O2 now. Marco, you handle that.." DeSoto told him, beginning to calm down somewhat. "Put him on 15Ls and be prepared to breathe for him if he goes over 24 a minute. For now, we'll keep him on his side until he wakes up. Cap, you can let go of him now. I've pushed his tongue clear. Looks like he was biting it."

Hank nodded, pulling his blood stained hands away from where Lopez and Roy were settling a demand valve over Johnny's nose and mouth.

He rose to his feet to find a hose puddle in which to wash. He didn't have far to go.  
::Only to the curb here.:: he sighed and he cleaned up. Then Captain Stanley pulled his HT out of his pocket and set it onto the squad's roof for monitoring while he watched Roy and the others work to assess Gage.

Roy wiped his hands off on the grass and snatched up the biophone to speak.

Photo : Chet and Marco carrying Johnny on a long board.

Photo: The gang scrambling to lay hose at a fire scene from the engine's line bed.

Photo: Johnny screaming aloud as a ceiling falls on him inside a fire.

Photo: Roy DeSoto on the landline in closeup.

Photo: Tight shot of the biophone's dials.

*  
From: "Cory Anda"  
Subject: Volatile Situation.  
Date: October 9, 2003. 09:45:08 0007 CST

"Rampart, this is Rescue 51. How do you read?" Roy began.

Dr. Early turned on the desk reel to reel recorder after he got Dixie's hint that there was an incoming call arriving to the base station. ## Go ahead, 51.## he replied.

"Rampart. We have three victims from an incendiary factory fire. Victim three has yet to be located. Victim one, a male approximately sixty years of age. He's suffering from mild smoke inhalation. Victim number two's a Code I. He's unconscious following being pulled out from under a roof collapse. He's been fully immobilized on a long board. A cervical collar has been applied and he's on 15 L's of O2. Vitals are: BP, 100/82, Respirations are 20 and rapid, and his carotid pulse is 120. There's substantial bleeding from his nose that we have draining by placement onto his side. He has no signs of cerebral spinal fluid leakage nor accompanying Coon's eyes or Battle's sign showing. His pupils are equal and reactive."

## 51, On Victim Two. Start an IV of Lactated Ringer's TKO and get a full neural assessment as soon as you can. Keep his head elevated and transport as soon as you've established the IV. On victim number one, keep him on six liters of 02 via nasal cannula and monitor his vital signs carefully throughout the trip in.  
Let me know when you've reached Victim Three.##

"10-4, Rampart." and Roy parroted his medical orders to the letter back to Joe Early to confirm what he had to do next.

Right then, Marco spoke up.  
"Roy, he's coming to.."

DeSoto dropped the phone and bent close to Gage's face, tapping Johnny on an eyelid with a finger to see if he blinked or not. "Johnny? You back?  
Open your eyes.."  
On the fourth tap, Johnny's face screwed up and he coughed wetly.

"Ok, guys.. Let's set him flat again.  
He's awake enough to manage all this bleeding."

Together, the four of them twisted, then tilted back the long board until it rested head up on Johnny's abandoned air bottle while they watched him regain a vestige of consciousness.

"Johnny?" Roy said loudly once again,  
gripping his face firmly between his hands. "Can you hear me?"

A soft moan answered him, then.  
"I saw a child in..in... listen, *Ugh* ..listen to me...I saw a small kid in there.." Gage mumbled, shoving away the flowing ventilator mask. Marco kept it hovering close on blow by over his nose and mouth as a compromise.

Chet looked up at Roy as he was covering Johnny up with a shock blanket. "Is he still half out of it? That last bit didn't make any sense at all."

"Probably. And no, that didn't make any sense to me either. Easy, Johnny. We're gonna haul you in to Rampart next for a thorough checkup."

Gage began to fidget as clarity crept back to him and he tried to touch his face and struggle free of the long board's restraints, grunting quietly.

DeSoto and Stoker both, grabbed his shoulders to immobilize him. Roy bent close to Johnny's bloody ear.  
"Hey,, hey.. Just lie back a sec. Let Marco finish up on your 02 first. You're still kinda in La La land."

Gage seemed to understand then and he remained silent after that, blinking slowly at the starry sky as he rubbed the ashes out of his eyes. A minute later, he focused on Roy starting an IV on one of his arms and something finally clicked mentally. "That Ringers?"

"Yeah."

"I don't need it. I'm .. I'm..not shocky."  
he fussed, pushing some new blood and old saliva out of the corner of his mouth in irritation.

"No, you're very stable. But you were unconscious for over ten minutes, partner.  
Humor Early for once and let him play doctor. It'll boost his ego. He's getting real tired of all the firefighters hurting themselves this week." DeSoto smiled down at Gage. "Remember, Rampart's had just as bad a shift as we had today, Junior. " he said.  
Then he added casually.. "While we're still on the subject, Johnny, do you hurt anywhere else besides your nose there? Don't go fussing with it now. It's not broken. I checked."

Gage eyed Roy up for several seconds in full doubt at that assessment, but then he admitted.  
"Nah..*cough* Just got a smoke headache. I think I'm only nauseated because of the crap I swallowed earlier." he groaned, closing his eyes to rest.. Johnny then allowed Marco to hold the mask over his face once more without protest.

"Well, we'll know that for sure once Early sees your skull series. Just keep clearing out that blood like you are." he told him seriously. But then his voice took up an amused warning. "Chet's got a gauze pad handy." Roy smirked.

Johnny opened his eyes when he felt new ministrations begin. "Ohh nooo.. gimme that, Kelly." he snapped at Chet who had started wiping Gage's face dry. "I can clean up myself.." he mumbled around the mask, snatching away the 4 X 4 from the curly haired fireman's fingers. "I'm doing fine so quit sweating the small stuff here. I was just getting all the sh*t out of my mouth." And he began to do the task of mopping up, himself.

"Uh.. huh.. " Chet agreed with feigned sarcasm. "I saw that. I saw that, believe me." Then he looked up. "Looks like Johnny's brain is basically intact, Roy. He's b*tching at me already."

"I came to that conclusion fifteen seconds ago."  
DeSoto laughed.

Stoker, Chet and Marco all grinned. DeSoto leaned close to examine Johnny's face and nose in more detail with his metallic pen light. "Your nasal bleeding's finally slowing." Roy said.

Johnny emitted a noise of doubt. "Huh.  
Feels like I'm still drowning in it."

"Unlikely.." Roy countered. "You're still talking." he quipped slyly.

"Amen to that, Roy!" Chet chattered enthusiastically, giggling uproariously.

Johnny glared. But only mildly, at his coworkers.

A commotion drew all their attentions then.  
The day supervisor was rushing over to where Cap was standing and he suddenly blurted out. "Say, Mister. I got the demolition experts from the plant coming from downtown. They say they can help coordinate an operation to use explosives to put out the fire near the most critical explosive production rooms."  
said the manager in tan.

"Talk to that man right there." Cap interjected and he pointed a finger at Battalion 14, just setting up shop a short distance away in the safe zone.

Cap watched as Station Ten's men ran out of the building with a gasping man supported between their shoulders.  
::There's number two..:: he thought,  
remembering the woman who had been brought out earlier before Johnny's trouble.

He started to turn away when he saw that the smoke stained man was fine and conscious. The recovery team was placing their burden onto a waiting hearse ambulance gurney when Cap heard him speak, urgently hoarse around his oxygen mask.  
"Hey. *cough* My daughter's still in there."

Hank motioned for the attendants, who were starting to wheel him away, to halt. "Wait a minute.  
Wait a minute. I wanna talk to this man. Mister, can you repeat that? Is your daughter the third victim we've been looking for?"

"What? Little Megan? No way.. She's nine years old and cute as a button."

That last comment struck a chill down Chet and Roy's spines. "Johnny was right about there being a kid in there somewhere?" Kelly gasped.

They both looked up from the IV they were taping down, sharply, and started paying attention to the new victim information Cap was gleaning bit by bit from the agitated man.

The injured worker continued his story.  
"She came to see where I work, on a tour. *cough*  
She's writing a school paper on what line of work I'm into since she's got the crazy idea that she wants to join a ski patrol in Colorado when she grows up."

"Uh huh.. uh huh.." Cap nodded impatiently.  
"When did you last see her?"

"About twenty minutes ago.  
Heading up the steps above the office block to the rafters lookout level with Howard. He's one of the designers of the warehouse. I think she wanted to see how the crane lifts worked."  
"What's she look like? Uhh,.. W-What was she wearing today?" Roy butted in, thinking how best to get the information they needed to mount a more comprehensive search.

" Megan's outfit? Oh, let me see.. Uhh.  
White. All white. A little girl's T shirt and pants. She's got blond hair.. Real short!" he shouted after Roy who went running to the next team of searchers exchanging out their spent air bottles for new ones. He found them near the south entrance of the burning plant and he quickly told them of the unexpected development.

##Move it, Roy. I'll let you know when Johnny's ready to ship out over the radio#  
Cap promised over the HT.

Johnny regarded his gurneyed, sooty companion thoughtfully as Marco finally changed out his ventilator mask for a lesser flow nasal cannula. Johnny said to the man. "I hope she's ok, for your sake, mister. I know how it is in there. The roof's real unstable." he said.

The plant worker opened his eyes and regarded the dirty paramedic looking at him from the ground. "She's a good kid. She wouldn't do anything stupid like getting caught in a fire.."

Chet tried his best not to chortle when Gage made a face overhearing that comment.

"Yeah, well that doesn't change the fact that Megan's in a whole lotta danger right now.." Cap said with exasperation.  
"The whole place might be about to go up."  
he said standing over them both, eyeing the hustling companies ringing the fire scene.

"Doubtful.." said the man instantly.  
"Howard has always said that nothing short of an atom bomb would set off all the special stuff we got in storage."

"What kind of special stuff?" Hank frowned.

"Oh, plastique. Timed nitrite incendiaries.  
and some rocket fuel."

"Any TNT or nitroglycerin?" Hank asked.

"Nothing so archaic, Cap. What do we look like? ACME Plant Central?"

Photo : Night fire crews working a suburban California fire.

Photo: Johnny on the ground at night, hurt.

Photo: Chet and Cap discussing something in full turnout at night.

Photo: Cap by the engine at night.

*  
From : "Katherine Bird" Subject : Tightrope Act.. Date : Wed, 15 Oct 2003 22:12:35 +0100

Roy pelted towards the team headed in, refastening his air mask over his face. Already, he was breathing hard. ::A kid? I really hate kid calls.:: he quailed mentally.  
An equally mental memory surfaced that had Johnny's signature all over it. ::Why did you think Cap let you go inside again anyway? He knows you're no good to him being held back on any kid search at a fire.:: Johnny's voice seem to say.

Roy wished that Gage could somehow be with him.  
::Right now. We seem to search out a building better working with the both of us, together..:: Jamming his helmet a little further onto his head and flipping up his collar, Roy uptook the back end of the fire hose and went with the L.A. city team, explaining about the little girl to their anchor man and his orders from Cap to find her.

"Where was she last seen?" said a burly man in Pasadena yellow at Roy. His mask muffled only a little of the man's dismay.

DeSoto pointed up. "Rafters! Around the auto lifts!"

"Right.." said the front hose man and together, the four of them fought their way through the roaring fire towards a set of metal stairs along one wall.

The bitter smell of soaked cardboard and burned plastics permeated the air and seeped into Roy's mouth and nose as they hosed down the growing fire through the metal grating of the stairway. "This air's hardly breathable, even with a mask on. I hope they're still alive.." he thought.

At the top of the landing, they found Howard. He had fallen and Roy knew even before he peeled off a glove for a pulse check that the man was already dead. ::Broken neck.:: He felt the cool blistered skin and confirmed the lack of a pulse in seconds. He hastily pulled his glove back on and shook his head in the negative at the others who were wishfully fanning a wash over him and the body.

One of the firemen broke away from the hose to heft up Howard onto his shoulders and he began heading towards the nearest hole in the walls where they could all see fire engine lights wavering in the orange glowing darkness around the smoke.

The recovery group pushed higher up along meshed stairs stretching towards the faraway ceiling and the rafter walkways there. Several suspended paths were canted and swaying, full of burning debris.  
"We can't go this way. Turn around and go back one landing. I think I remember another way up there !" said the front fireman.

Soon, they found themselves on a second clear landing with two paths available. One way led into a wall of heat,  
far too much for anything still living to endure; the other dipped into unexpected night coolness.

::This must be the open part left behind from the section of roof that fell on Johnny.:: Roy reasoned. He shot ahead, through the advancing hose spray and into that second choice of blackness, pulling off his mask's straps. "Megan! Can you hear me?"

DeSoto's voice echoed around the sagging and violated,  
partially melted beams, over the din of the flames, eerily.

There was no reply.

Roy turned a one eighty in place, keeping a hand on a fireman's jacket for reference, and shouted again in the direction of the second side of factory ceiling walkways. He took a breath from his mask as he listened tensely for any reply.  
"Megan!! Shout if you can so we can find you!"

He was about to motion the search team to move up to the next level when a treble echo of sound filtered through, bouncing off angles and hollows, barely audible over the snap and crackle of the nearby inferno.

"Hold it. Hold it.. Did you hear that?" Roy asked the other firemen. They all nodded that they did, and the lead man started shutting off the hose to listen, too.

"Megan?!" Roy shouted again, turning slightly to his left in the choking darkness.

Then the cry came again, clearer and more frightened. "Help! Help! I'm over here!"

"Keep shouting! We're coming!" Roy said, pulling on his mask again as they all picked up the heavy hose in double time to beat out the flames between them and the little girl.

"H-Hurry.. I .. Howard's gone.. He...He slipped and fell away from me. I can't see him anywhere.."  
came Megan's weak, strained voice.

::She doesn't know that he was killed.:: Roy thought. ::Good.::"Megan.. what's around you?" Roy shouted at her. "We're trying to get nearer to where you are."

"A roof crane is hanging down. It's got a burning box on it!  
I'm.. I'm scared! I want daddy.."

All three men whirled, studying the flame rippling ceiling until they spotted the only ceiling lift, still swaying in the heat with a chained payload. It was sixty feet in front of them.

"There.. There!" Roy pointed. They could see Megan reaching out to them from where she lay on her stomach,  
partially hidden in the smoke. Her white clothes stood out under their flashlights.

The firemen ran. But the head hose man suddenly whirled,  
dropping the spraying hose to suddenly press them all back into the fiery stairwell where they had just come from. "Hold it hold it.. The floor's gone! " he shouted, urgently peeling off his steamed air mask.

The others all did the same to hear and see him better as the man pointed downwards with a gloved hand.

They all had come two steps away from joining Howard in death.

A section of the suspended metal mesh walkway was missing, melted clean away by the intensity of the fire's heat, burning far below them. Fifteen feet of yawning space separated them from the groggy little girl.

"Now what?" Roy hissed in frustration. "We don't have time to go back for any belts or rope. She isn't gonna last that long."

"Let me think.." said the lieutenant who had been leading the hose team. He studied their surroundings carefully, rubbing his chin. Roy felt valuable seconds scrape by like an unwanted snowstorm.

As they watched and yelled out encouragements to Megan to hang on just a little longer while they figured out how to reach her, Megan's grasping hand slowly dropped as she passed out from the thickening smoke.

"Megan?" Roy shouted out to her. But the little girl's tiny form, stayed still and unmoving.

The swaying walkway suddenly shifted as its chains weakened and the unconscious little girl slid along the grating until her head and arms flopped over the edge of the walkway precariously, as she rolled.

All the firemen on the other side flung out arms as if to catch her."Oh, no.. Don't you dare!" shouted the lieutenant,  
looking up.

By some miracle, the large buckle on Megan's rainbow colored belt caught on a torn off bolt and halted her forward momentum before her waist, too, could go over the edge,  
and she jerked to a halt, her sooty blond hair swaying.

The firemen let out the breaths they were collectively holding.

Roy started to breathe faster in worry. He was already sweating. "Look. Let's cut our lifeline and use that to rig a harness. We can tie it off over that beam up above and swing across." he suggested,  
taking another breath of air from his mask.

The lieutenant's head canted. "Cut our lifeline? It's our only means outta here.."

"What other choice do we have?" Roy said angrily. "The next chain that snaps may be the one that dumps her. Besides, she's already out and you know how fast kids go down when they quit breathing. One of us has to get over there to her to prevent that. Now."

The lieutenant no longer delayed. He got on his HT.  
"HT 10 to Battalion 14."

##Go, HT 10.## came the fast reply from the chief.

"We've located the third victim and a child. He's the fatality that came out to you a few minutes ago and she's still inaccessible! Chief, we're going to use our buddy line to reach her.."

A long pause followed over the open frequency as Battalion 14 weighed the risks. ##All right. Do what you have to do, men. I'm sending in another team to meet you with a new line that you all can follow out. What's your location?##

Roy lifted his HT. "About the middle of the main room,  
at the top of the only metal stairway not collapsed yet.  
It's right above where Johnny Gage was trapped."

##10 - 4. Watch for the others and be careful. We're talking demolition out here if the fire spreads out much more than it already has. The high risk rooms are now in serious jeopardy. ## came the gruff worried reply. ## You have six minutes. Tops.  
Then I'm ordering you all out of there.##

"Understood.." Roy answered. "We'll radio once we've gotten to her.. HT 51 out.." and he pushed down his radio antennae to shove the talkie back into his jacket.  
"Six minutes..." he mumbled to himself. "That's no time at all.."

------------------------------------------------------

Photo : Roy in a helmet looking up in a warehouse, worried.

Photo: Two masked airbottled firemen with a hose in a closeup inside a building.

Photo: Aerial view of firemen in a basket over fire, looking down.

Photo : Battalion 14 on an HT closeup.

Photo : Firemen rushing with a hose into a smoky building.

Photo : A fully involved burning warehouse with melting infrastructure in the foreground.

*  
From: "Linda Taggatz" Date: Thu Oct 16, 2003 10:39 pm Subject: Megan's Rescue.

Outside another idea was hatched. Stoker suggested using the snorkel to rescue her.  
"How?' asked Captain Stanley.  
"By raising it to where she's caught and lowering a line down to Roy and helping him get to her.  
"Good idea! Let's try it."  
Captain Stanley got on the H.T. and requested it.  
The snorkel was moved into place and the line lowered to Roy. He hooked his life belt on to the line then swung across to Megan.  
He checked her. The pulse was faint but there. He quickly freed her and put his oxygen mask on her. Then he signaled on the H.T. for the snorkel to lift them out of there.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Photos : None.

*  
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 06:01:11 -0700 (PDT) From: "Sam Iam" Subject: The Towering Inferno.. ::I owe someone a huge dinner for this idea.:: Roy thought as he adjusted the portable oxygen tank more firmly into the lowered stokes for Megan's emergency lift out. ::Someone was thinking on their toes when they thought of including that lifebelt, too, with the stokes. I was stupid for not bringing one in with me:: Roy sighed in relief as he hugged her against his chest. A paternal pang gripped him unexpectedly. ::She feels just like my daughter.:: came the thought, unbidden and his grip about her tightened protectively as he continued to feel how effectively she was breathing.

Just as rapidly, Roy's professional side kicked in. ::Cool it! The clock is still ticking down before the chief orders that complete evac of the building. Don't lose this opportunity for Megan by getting lost in your emotions.  
Extricate her and move on...:: his practical mind set demanded. ::Mull over it later.::

Gasping, Roy did the work. Then he lifted his head, sighting along the swaying rope as far as he could through the column of smoke disappearing into the midnight sky. "HT 51 to Snorkel One. I've got her strapped down and on the O2!" he shouted through his own air mask over the roar of the distant fire far below. "She's breathing and set to go! Take up the slack!" And he started to hook his belt's fastener onto the stokes line.

The reply back from the basket was a very welcome surprise. Mike Stoker answered, immediately easing Roy's rising stress over his still very real and present danger. But that quiet calm voice was tinged with an unmistakable stab of worry..## Affirmative, HT 51. Hold up on tandem rappelling. The snorkel engineer says we're at maximum reach and extension and on the edge for balance. We can only take your victim!## his voice crackled through the heat from the talkie's speaker.

DeSoto could just imagine Stoker's masked figure leaning over the edge of the basket trying to peer down through the thick billowing smoke rising up between them. ::I wonder how he fanaggled that company for the ride up? Most likely, Cap pulled some rank because I'm still in here in the hot seat:  
Roy realized. ::They must be real tippy reaching this far over the factory to the hole in the roof. No matter.  
Megan's first and no one with me will debate that:  
Quickly, Roy connected the four stokes straps without hesitation and he yanked on the guide lines firmly to reinforce what he said open HT. "Understood. She's secured and good for go!" he shouted, tugging three times on her stretcher's rope over his helmet. Then he swung back across the gap using the snorkel's grace line and off the rickety walkway back to his companions in the stairwell. "They'd better move fast.  
If the rest of that roof goes, the sparking plume and fire resulting from that will catch them." he said to the lieutenant.

The lieutenant grinned. "I'm Irish, 51. And I've got fifty saints watching over me that says that roof's gonna park until we clear ourselves completely."

Roy grinned as he watched Megan's stokes get hand to hand rope lifted out of the blazing warehouse.  
"Make that a hundred patron saints, 10. I'm Irish, too.  
Come on, let's get out of here before we boil."

Slowly, the three firefighting men retraced the route down through the inky smoke along the shaky gutted stairs infrastructure until they met up with the second team Battalion 14 sent in to fetch them on a new buddy line.  
They were six strong and moving on ground level when a hail came out. "Battalion 14 to HT 51 and Snorkel 1. Got your victim clear?"

##Affirmative!## Roy replied at the same time that Stoker's voice echoed the same from the lowering basket outside.

Then just as fast, a priority break-in-transmission shot over their HT open frequency with a harsh squeal.  
##To all units! Get clear! Get clear! The roof's caving in over the labs! ##

An immediate reply from the new firefighters with Roy and his team, anticipated Battalion 14's next hail and beat it coming. "Team Two to Battalion 14. We're ok. We're with Team One.."

##Copy..## said the chief from outside. ##Find a way outta there. The demolition crew's almost completed their setup. They have to blow their charges to snuff out that side of the fire before any of the labs integrity seals are compromised. I give you two minutes..##

:: The east exit's blocked off? Oh no..:: Roy quailed in his head.::That was our only known way out.:: The lieutenant and the others pounded down the stairs, abandoning the charged water hose like a spooked puppy with a live snake. Their air bottles and tanks rattled almost as loudly as the fire's flames as they ran for their lives.

Roy didn't even think about what kind of h*ll would greet them when they reached the bottom of the stairs....

The lieutenant led the way to the last landing. He paused, setting a bare hand on the door once more and feeling around on its metal surface for sensations of heat. He grimaced and pulled his hand away before he dragged it twelve inches. "It's hot.. Go back up. We'll try the dolly freight. I remember passing it just before we found this stairwell."

The men ran, trusting their superior's memory of the trip in.

"There..!" said the irish lieutenant, pulling off his mask and pointing. Only a little debris and a few flaming timbers lay across the door. These the firefighters kicked away and rapidly, they took out their jacket halligans and jimmeyed the double metal doors ajar to lift the cage barrier of the elevator. "In! In! We'll crank her to the ground level and wait it out!"

Roy startled.. "Wait what out?" he asked. The faces on the others reflected his dismay.

"The explosion.." the lieutenant said grimly. "According to my watch we have less than a minute and a half to clear, and there's no way in h*ll we're gonna do that."

DeSoto nodded, biting his lip. "If we close these doors,  
all this metal will provide some shielding."

The Lt. nodded. "Uh huh.. and it won't matter if the shaft cables snap in the concussion because we'll already be at the bottom.. Come on, put some muscle into it!" he roared at the men on top of the car,  
using their halligans to release the brake enough for the car to slide with a thunk to the ground stops.  
"Now, in!! Get that ceiling panel shut. Lock it off with a tool. The back pressure may blow it free."

Soon, the freights doors were jammed tight with tools and rope and they were flung into total darkness.  
One of the team switched on a jacket torch and all eyes focused on where ever its beam wandered.

The Lt. radioed out. "We're in the elevator shaft under shelter. Good to go." he reported to the Battalion Chief.

## Read you. Glad you thought of the shaft. Stand by#  
there was a pause. ## I don't have to tell you men that you may become trapped inside of there by debris landing in front of the doors. Your air bottles may run out before we can cut you free..##

"Better carrion than char, Chief.. You'll get us out.  
New bottles for us can be lowered down the shaft using the snorkel after the debris cloud dissipates."

##Good luck, Lt.##

"Same to you. Let's hope those demolition experts really know their stuff.. Team One and Two, out."

##Battalion 14, out. Forty five seconds..##

Roy felt the countdown through every fiber of his being. His thoughts turned to Joanne, Johnny and his family. He only dimly heard the lieutenant offering advice.

"I've been through one of these once before. The building,  
if it goes down, will spare collapsing the elevator shaft like they usually do chimneys in these things. Now crouch down, and open your mouths and plug your nose or the pressure wave will shred your eardrums!"

One of the younger men looked pale behind his air mask as they all placed their backs against the wall. "Will it hurt much?" he said with a brave smile.

"Only if you forget to do what I just instructed."  
The lieutenant pulled off his mask and took in an experimental breath of air before Roy could stop him. "Air's still good. Try to conserve your bottles afterwards." he said putting his mask back on and hunkering down in his jacket and helmet.

::That's if we're still here..:: Roy's mind added mercilessly. More quiet advice, calmed him and the others.

"Cover your face with your arms and huddle down.  
Bound to be a lot of dust. Tie off with rope if you have to. The lift may jostle more than just a little bit."

Roy hooked his gloves on a grip bar above his head and held on.

Tick. tick. ...tick.... ::Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen:  
thought Roy. He had been counting ever since the chief's numeric cue over the HT.

DeSoto jumped when his bottle started sounding off a low air hooter. He shut his off and held his breath.  
::I'll buddy breathe with someone else when this is all over.::

The men fell silent, alone with only their own thoughts as sweat fogged up their masks, rendering them blind.

Roy opened his mouth...and closed his eyes.  
::See you soon, Joanne. It's just another day at the office.::

Three... Two....One.........

A horribly deep, gurgling growl of air belched like a demonic beast around them, heralding the arrival of destructive forces unleashed by the demolitions team.

The firemen flinched as a gust of non air ripped around them from all four sides inwardly towards them. The pressure kick whitened out their retinas making them gasp in pain when an intense searing stab of yellow light preceded it.

A wash of heat cooked the walls in a blast and made the men recoil from their firm surfaces as the elevator bed bounced and jerked from the brunt of the explosion.

There were five blast waves, the last of which was the most violent. It left them bruised and battered.

Roy opened his eyes and realized that the elevator bed had canted. "The whole shaft's been tilted. Don't touch that panel! It's sparking!" he said when he heard spitting electricity from the direction of the phone box near the floor.

He felt an air mask being pressed into his gloves from a neighbor and he took a grateful breath of rushing air.  
He tried to pass it back but a voice said. "No, keep it.  
I'll share with Karl here. You need it more than I, being a medic. The situation's changed completely."

"Thanks.." Roy slid the new mask back on to see through the choking dust. His hands and legs were shaking so bad with shock that he could barely move. "Sound off!" he ordered, hunting for casualities. He wondered why their team leader was so quiet.

The young, scared fireman shouted. "The Lieutenant!  
He's down!"

"Where?"

"Here. Follow my voice. I got my hand on his stomach."

"Is he breathing?"

"Yeah.."

The flashlight's circle of light moved to Roy's left,  
illuminating a yellow Pasadena jacket. DeSoto felt up the man's neck and located a bounding carotid and another sweep of the light revealed a small bloody cut on the man's head.

Roy's simple move to open the man's airway made him stir.

"Easy. You're fine. You must have hit your head on a wall. It's over..." Roy soothed, he turned his head as if he could see in the thick dust floating in the air around him. "Anyone else hurt?" he asked, taking over charge of the two teams. "Say yes or no.."

All "no's" spoke up in the darkness.

Roy kneeled, getting closer to the lieutenant and he peeled off the man's air mask gingerly,  
he accepted the flashlight someone handed him and tried not to tremble. "Lieutenant?"

"Please,, call me O'Malley.." he mumbled.  
"P-Patrick..." he groaned, keeping his eyes closed from the brightness of the torch.

"Do you hurt anywhere else besides your head? Here, breathe through this mask by hand. I just had to loosen these straps so I could check you out."

"I...I think I'm fine.. Just...just..not yet all there."

"You just rest easy. They'll get us out in rapid order.." Roy sighed. "Try not to sleep.  
You may have a concussion from what I'm seeing here.."

"Got it.." the man whispered. "Am I the only one with a few lumps?"

Roy nodded. "Yeah.."

"Good.. I'll have some battle scars to go with my other ones.. Oooo.." he said, squinching up in sudden pain.

"What? Your head?" Roy asked him quickly.

"No..*gasp*.. both my shoulders. Right up under my collar bone. Hurts..."

::That's belly involvement..:: DeSoto pegged immediately.

Roy moved the flashlight down and several hands unbuckled O'Malley's jacket to bare the area. Roy found some dark stains spreading in the dimness.  
::Blood... There's trouble here all right..::

Then his bare hand found why. Patrick had a halligan impaled through his side.

"Don't move. You've stabbed yourself.."

"What?" O'Malley groaned, breathing shallowly,  
inside his mask.

"A halligan. The one from your jacket. Doesn't look too bad. Upper left quadrant. It's buried only about three inches down."

"Take it out!" Patrick quailed.

"Not on your life. That may be stopping a lot of internal bleeding and it probably missed everything major. I still have good pulses in your legs and the bleeding's only sluggish."  
DeSoto said.

Patrick lay still. "Well, looks like I'll have to listen to you for the rest of this one."

"Looks like. Don't worry. We both have something in common here." Roy smiled large enough for his patient to see through both their masks.

"What's that?"

"We're both good at not losing people. You physically and me medically.."

Patrick smiled and laughed. He immediately grimaced when the halligan moved. "Don't make me laugh.."

"I certainly won't make you cry.." DeSoto promised.

"I'm counting on it.." Patrick grunted.

"You're doing fine.." Roy said, then he looked up as cool night air suddenly filtered down inside the elevator shaft and washed away the suffocating plaster dust they had endured.  
"We're in the open, that's outside air coming in.  
We can take off our masks. The rest of you not helping me, see if you can reopen that door."

-  
Twenty five minutes later, all the firefighters were free and a very dusty Roy sat next to his partner in the Mayfair rig en route to Rampart.

Johnny Gage opened his eyes and wrinkled his nose at the plastery sour smoke smell coming off Roy's shirt. "Wough.. Somebody needs a shower.  
Real bad."

Roy smiled. "I'll get one. Can't stay smelling like roses when you're waiting for a powder keg to go off under your feet.."

Johnny paled. "You were inside when those guys blew the fire around the labs?" he said, his eyes getting wide inside of his long board's wraps and straps.

"Yep.." Roy grinned.

"Oh, Roy... Joanne's gonna kill you when she finds out."

"No she won't. "

"Why not?"

"Because if she does, I'll tell her the reason why I was in there in the first place."

It was Johnny's turn to smile. "You guys found Megan."

"Sure did."

"Well, all right.." Johnny said, trying to lace his fingers around the back of his head, but his IV line and backboard encumberances prevented him from doing it. He grunted in frustration, giving it up. Then he eyeballed the red stains on Roy's jacket and hands. "Any of that yours?"

"Nope. Lt. O'Malleys. And he's gonna be fine after a little patch up surgery."

"What happened?"

"He argued with the wrong end of a halligan while the explosion was going on. It got him through the spleen most likely.."

Johnny gripped his own stomach in sympathy. "Ooo,  
that's gotta smart getting stuck down there.."

"Not according to him. Patrick said he just had some referred pain going up into his shoulders and that's all."

"huh.. gotta remember those symptoms.." Gage said honestly.

"Speaking of symptoms, how are you doing?"

"Fine. How's the little girl you got out?"

"You mean whom Stoker got out.."

"Stoker?"

"Yeah,... he commandeered a snorkel bucket and we stretchered her out before the demo guys blew out the building."

"Heheheh. That's thinking on your feet."

"Yeah.. I was impressed." Roy admitted.  
"Megan's gonna be just fine. She was just a little suffocated from all the bad air she took in. She's headed to Rampart with Squad 10."

"That's good. Then I'll probably get to meet her in the hallway or something waiting to be seen. I remember how busy the ER was before we got this call. It might still be that way.."

"Yeah, well, I don't think you're gonna be waiting too long, partner. You've had a history of vomitting and unconsciousness." Roy chided.

"I feel fine.."

"I'm not the one who needs convincing. Tell that to the doctors.."

"I will, believe me.."

"Of that I have no doubt.." Roy said, cleaning up his skin with some saline from a bottle.  
"Try to get some rest. We're almost there."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: A snorkle extending over a burning roof at night.

Photo: A midnight flaming warehouse.

Photo: Roy DeSoto close up in dusty light.

*  
From : Katherine Bird .uk Sent : Thursday, December 11, 2003 11:48 PM Subject : Right Moves and Night Moves...

Offstory- My gratitude to Audrey, ,  
the ETL Pediatrics Consultant for her aid in helping me with smoke inhalation lab work and with the temperment and personality of nine year olds in general.

Onstory-  
"Roy,.. how's she doing?" Dr. Brackett asked as he met the rolling gurney holding the unconscious nine year old Megan from the explosives fire in a nest of backboard straps, O2 lines and IV tubing.

Roy indicated Dwyer to his left. "Better ask Stan here. He's the one who brought her in.  
I had Johnny."

Kel looked up at the man from Station Ten.

"Meagan's doing fine, so far, doc." Dwyer piped up. "She's still pulling air. Glasgow's five though.  
BP's 84 over 60. Rate off the bag here's ten.  
Pulse 132. Pupils still sluggish but equal and reactive."  
the other paramedic replied.

"Any head involvement or other trauma?" Kel said, glancing at the child's face and nose around the ambu's mask looking for swelling and redness under the ashy soot he saw there.

"None. We all saw her just pass out slowly onto a metal walkway."  
Roy answered for Dwyer.

"What kind of fire was she in, Roy?" the dark haired doctor said, holding the door to Treatment Three open as orderlies maneuvered both Gage and Megan's beds into the same room together.

"In a clean flaming one, burning explosives. We found her amid complete incendiaries and others that were unassembled from labs, from what I saw. Doc, I wouldn't doubt those scientists had all the usual chemical building blocks necessary to make an entire military arsenal. A real toxic soup. You should see our hats,doc.  
That smoke turned our helmet numbers green." DeSoto said cryptically.

"Really? Green's a good color.." Gage piped up.

"Shh..." Dwyer hissed at Johnny. "Let them work or do I have to come over there with a bite stick." he warned teasingly.

Brackett and DeSoto never even heard the humor going on behind them. Roy went on with more information.  
"She was inside for about twenty minutes, near the ceiling of a warehouse on a catwalk."

Kel rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  
"Hmm, bound to be a lot of nitrates and cyanide created in that kind of blaze if I picked up any kind of hazmat know how from listening to you fellas all the time."

"That's a sure bet." Gage coughed from his gurney.  
Dr. Brackett regarded his tiny patient steadily as he unbound Megan's cushioning C-collar and listened around her oral airway for breath and lung sounds. "No rhonci or rales yet. But I'm hearing a bit of bronchiospasm on the left side. Roy, Stan, do I have parental consent to treat this child? I didn't see anyone here with you guys in the hallway."

"You do." Roy said. "We got it verbally at the fire. The father's on his way in on another ambulance for mild smoke inhalation. Mr. Miller specifically told us to tell you to go ahead with Megan's treatment sight unseen. And Vince witnessed that statement being given first hand."

Kelly Brackett smiled crookedly. "Wouldn't it be nice if all future parental care authorizations can go as smoothly as this one has?" he quipped ironically. "Dix, draw blood on her for an ABG, have the lab run a full creatinine series with a BUN. Also electrolytes. Tell them to also check for elevated HbCO and CN levels as well.  
When you're done, run a nebulizer to that ventilator you're setting up and give her 2.5 mg of .5% solution Albuterol in a 2.5 ml saline push. I want to get her lung perfusion a little higher than what we're achieving manually. I'm not satisfied her capillary refill's being truthful here. Keep the bird's vents on the low end. I don't want atelectasis setting in on top of her other problems."

"Right away, Kel." Dixie replied.

"And have the pharmacy prepare a peds dose of Sodium Nitrite IV. I want to chase some of that cyanide out of her blood before any rhabdomyolysis gets a foothold. Also schedule a session in our hyperbaric chamber. She'll only blow out all her hemoglobin bound carbon monoxide faster that way I think. Anything to shorten the CO's half life inside her body. But first, let's see how she's managing."

Dixie nodded.

Dr. Brackett glanced at Dwyer. "Get her patched in, Stan.  
I wanna see that tachycardia written out now."

Stan nodded and efficiently got a two lead EKG connected to the comatose child.

Everyone in the room held their breaths while Brackett read the strip that was whistling audible warbles into the bustling silence. "She's got a stable rhythm. I think I like it all things considering. Gage, how are you doing?" Kel asked of his second patient, without looking up.

"*Cough!* Nothing that an ice pack for my nosebleed won't fix.  
You concentrate on that little girl there first." Johnny complained.  
"My condition's unremarkable."

"He was out for a while doc.." Roy said rolling his eyes, refusing to play coverup.

Johnny shot Roy a betrayed hurt look laced with a seething anger that Gage immediately broke off when Kel moved over to his bed to begin his examination. "Uh huh".. Brackett said, looking onto Johnny's nose and eyes with a penlight. "Dix. Call X-ray...."  
he said, placing an ice bag over Johnny's nasal bridge.

Roy interrupted,.." ..for a chest film on Megan and a full skull series on Johnny." At Brackett's and Dixie's surprised looks, he blushed and said, "I - I already told them on the way in here.." he gestured at the door. "I had nothing better to do so I anticipated a few things."

Brackett scowled, sourly cross. "Crazy paramedics think they can practice medicine without a license behind their training physician's back." His harsh frown fell away into a mischievious wink. "Good call, Roy. Exactly what I would've done. Did you also draw up a syringe of 1 ml succinylcholine in case we have to paralyze Megan here for an endotracheal intubation if she loses any more tidal volume?"

Roy held up his left hand from its needle guarded position next to Dixie's shoulder a little higher, complete with alcohol soaked cotton ball folded under a pinkie.

Kel chortled and began laughing.  
"G*d I love the paramedic program. Why did I ever think that it wouldn't work, Miss McCall?" he sighed with amusement.

"Because you were stubborn, opinionated and slow to change at the time, Doctor Brackett." Nurse Dixie said evenly. "Took everything I had to bring you around.."

Brackett cleared his throat. "Ehem.. well.."  
getting suddenly uncomfortable. "I didn't think the men could handle what a doctor could do then, Dix. I'll be frank about that.  
It took that miracle, and you, to convince me to speak in committee to reverse my mindset that night."

Gage's mouth flopped open. "Is that true, doc? You voted against us in the beginning?" he said, pushing Kel's hand and penlight away. "I hadn't heard anything about that at all." he said incredulously. "Man, what were you thinking? Roy and I were sticking our legal necks out for you in the field, pulling nurses out from under falling cars,... and defibrillating with experimental equipment in mud raining tunnels,.. and -and you had the gall to think we were out of our scope doing what you sent us out there to do all along?"

"Gage! Hush or I'll order an arterial blood gas on you, too."  
said Brackett sternly in an attempt to be funny. It failed miserably.

Johnny quieted down instantly.

"Now, where was I?" he demanded of Gage.

Johnny just gaped like a fish, cowed, thinking better of even opening his mouth.

Roy licked his lips, suffering pangs for Johnny's trapped status. "Secondary assessment, doc."

"Oh yeah.. that's right. Does this hurt?" Kel said impishly light in a countering move. He began probing Johnny's ribs firmly with both hands, knowing that it would fiercely tickle the ticklish young paramedic where he couldn't stop him because of the long board's complete arm and leg immobilization ability.

"Nope.." Johnny squeaked five octaves higher than normal around his oxygen mask.

"Well, how about here, down a little lower?" Kel asked threatening to quadrant check Johnny's belly with air wriggling fingers hovering inches away from their target,  
his eyes flashing dangerously amused.

"ReallyI'.Ishouldknow.  
I thinkmytongue'sgoingnumbtoorightaboutnow."  
he chipmunked chirped, making a face of unhappy anticipation.

Dixie laughed in her throat. "Nothing can torment a patient more than ten fingers fully versed on the human nervous system. Leave off, Kel. The first amendment's still honored in this country or have you forgotten about it in your old age."

"I'm not old! But I will admit to be an expert. " Brackett said straightening to move out of the way of the X-ray people. "And experts deserve a little privacy.  
...including what I might have thought in the past about a certain brand new county program beginning with a "p" and ending in with a "c" five years ago. Do I make myself clear?"  
he said to the only one wearing a white skirt in the room.

Dixie nodded in grudging agreement. "Ok, you win.  
...this time." she added under her breath. "But what happened back then is all moot anyway. Don't be so sore about it. Roy proves his worth every day.  
So does Johnny. You just celebrated an example of it a few minutes ago."

Brackett pretended he didn't hear his head nurse at all and he let his good natured smile fully return.  
"Gage, I'll be merciful this time." Kel said rapping a knuckle on johnny's chest strap buckle. "I'm gonna take an action that might make those inappropriate verbal comments I'm hearing from the peanut gallery go away. I have a new theory developing right now that spineboard belts interfere with blood flow to the brain in people not needing neck and back immobilization. So I'm gonna have the orderlies spring you from this contraption right now right after the Xray technicians get my chest and head films on both you and the girl.."

Johnny sighed in relief...

"And, after their one hour lunch break of course.."

Gage's eyes widened in immediate dismay.  
"WhaatT ?!"

"I'm just kidding, Johnny. Really. That was a little bedside humor working there. Dixie keeps telling me to practice improving upon it all the time. So I just did. Dwyer. Free him while I finish up here on our favorite hose jockey.." Brackett winked. " And Dix, see what you can do to get these two upstairs. We've a full waiting room outside."

McCall nodded. "I think I can pull off another miracle, Kel.  
Unlike changing the mind of a doctor, that's gonna be an easy one."

-  
::A little bedside humor..:: Gage thought morosely of his very active companion in the darkened bed next to him. ::There can be too much of a good thing. :: And he gave out a long sigh while he endured another round of chatter from his tiny, now familiar roommate.  
::Why did I have to be transferred to pediatrics?:: he thought fervently shifting onto his side, pulling a pillow over his face to shut out Megan's non stop singing and questions.

"And those jokes..." Johnny moaned as a crack in the doorway to his room opened, admitting Dixie McCall.

"What about those jokes.. I happen to like them.."  
she purred, walking nearer to their beds with a silver tray that contained a few things. "So be nice, ok?"  
she addressed Johnny. "I traded a few minutes with Cheryl so I could check up on you two.. Hiya Megan.  
Feeling a bit better?"

"Oh, yes maam.." Megan said brightly. "Daddy just left and look what he left me! More coloring books!"  
she displayed her stack, thunking them noisely down onto her bedside tray where she began to scribble vigorously on the first of them with a well used green pen.

Johnny pulled the blanket down from around his head and said, "Really, coloring books? I don't suppose you'd like to share.." he mumbled. "I'd give anything to do something else around here besides watching the late show." he said dryly.

"OK." Megan piped up. "Lady, you can give the fire man that one with the trucks. That's boy's stuff."

Dixie raised her eyebrows in an "isn't that something"  
look of her tiny new friend and she handed over the book to Gage with a tiny bow.

Gage glanced over at Megan. "Hey.. Psst.."

Megan looked up from the horse she was coloring so carefully with her ink pen. "What?"

"Am I supposed to color here with my fingers?"  
Johnny said crankily. He didn't care that Dixie was asking him non verbally to distract Megan away from another blood sample syringe she was preparing for the child.

Megan just sighed and ignored him.

Gage sighed a likewise sigh and snaked out a hand and grabbed out the green pen from in between the child's fingers. "Thanks, kid."

"Hey!"

"Hey what?"

"That's MY pen."

"So?" Gage guffawed. "I happen to really like green.  
It's my favorite color. Gotta problem with that?"

"Yeah. I had it first."

"Yeah, well I'm bigger so live with it."

Dixie fired a glare at Johnny for not helping build a feeling of good will in advance with Megan to aid her cause but immediately turned all soft and bubbly when the girl glanced up at her.

"Lady, tell the rude fire man it's not nice to grab."  
Megan frowned.

"Mister Gage. " Dixie said. "Our little gal is absolutely in the right." she said pleasantly.  
"Now give it back.." she said heavily dark while smiling.

"Oh, all right.. Here. But I doubt you're gonna wanna hold that once she's through with you."

"When who's through with me?"

Dixie's looks could have killed Johnny, but he had the sense to not tempt "medusa's"  
gaze. "Me, I'm afraid, honey. Mister Gage told the truth there. ...If a bit bluntly.." she hissed under her breath at the gowned paramedic. "I have to get a sample for the lab Megan."

Megan squealed and ran to Gage's bed and kneeled on his pillow, grabbing his head in a death's grip while she put him between herself and the needle wielding head nurse. Johnny barely grabbed her IV stand to keep it from pulling the Ringer's line out of her arm.

"Oh come now, Megan, it's not going to be that bad.  
I happen to be very good at this. Now which arm do you want your shot in?"

"Yours..!" Megan insisted, pointing at Dixie.

Gage burst out laughing. "That is a viable option, Dix."

"Oh, stop.." Dixie half frowned and grinned.

Johnny wrapped his arms around Megan and brushed her blond hair out of her eyes, "No chance of taking a red top out of her IV?"

"Nope. We need another ABG."

"Ooooo." Gage said softly, pulling Megan around until she sat on the bed next to him. Then he took a breath and said. "Tell you what? You let Dixie get that sample and I'll teach you some jokes that you can tell all of your friends when you get out of here,  
ok? Do we have a deal?"

Megan grunted in protesting dismay only once but then her older personality began to reassert itself.  
"I guess. Daddy's always said it takes some hurt to feel better about things sometimes."

"Good girl." Dixie said. "Now park it over here."  
The head nurse said, tapping on Megan's blankets.  
"Mister Gage can hold your hand while I'm doing this if you'd like. He's a paramedic and he sees lab samples drawn by me all the time. He knows how to get little girls through so they don't feel much."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Ok. He can come over.."  
Megan whispered tearfully, turning her head away so she couldn't see anything while she placed her left arm onto her bed stand tray.

Gage drew himself around Megan in a bearhug.  
"Hi... Guess what Megan?"

"What?" she sniffed, breathing in tight sobs.

"The snuggle monster's here."

"W-What does he do?"

"This.." and Gage snatched her wrist up to his lips and farted a noise from his mouth loudly against her skin.

Megan laughed in squeaky birdlike mirth, showing a gap tooth in front.

"And you know what else?"

Megan's face shifted and fell from fear of Dixie's syringe to laughing hide and seek anticipation of Gage's next trick and back again, but nodded, unable to speak.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" Gage asked.

Megan rolled her eyes nervously and sniffed.  
"That one's dumb. To get to the other side."

"Oh yeah, are you calling my funnies stupid?"

Megan giggled... a little.

"Ok, answer me this.."

"What? Owww..."

"Shhh, Dixie's almost through, hon, then we can play all night.. Why did the chicken cross the basketball court ?"

Megan stiffened but Johnny held her arm still so she wouldn't move it dangerously. "Ow. Ow..! It hurts."

"Why did the chicken cross the basketball court, Megan?"  
Johnny said a little more insistently but still playfully bright. "Come on, think about it.."

"I don't know. Ow..! Take it out, Dixie. I don't want to give a blood sample. I've changed my mind..!"

Gage said,.. "Because he heard the referee calling out fowls.."

Megan's cry of panicky pain fell into one of hysterical laughter and she started giggling. "Where did you hear that one?"

"From Chet Kelly. He's the bully in my stationhouse.  
I- I mean, he's a bully but he's also my friend. In a good way. "

"owwieee..eee.."

"ok,, ok?" Gage whispered in encouragement as Dixie found the artery at last.

"Okkayy..ouchie! W- Why did the chicken cross the road, roll in the mud and cross the road again ?"

"I don't know. Why?"

Megan tipped her head back gasping and laughing trying to be brave while Dixie completed her blood tapping. "Because he was a dirty double-crosser!"

Dixie chortled at that one. "That's new. Tell us another joke, Megan. The vial's almost full."

"Yes, *sniff* yes maam.. aghHH ! *sob*Why didn't t-the chicken skeleton cross the road ?"

"We give up, Megan.." Johnny said, holding her arm and head still.

"Because he didn't have enough guts!" she yelled. "Is it over yet?" she sobbed.

"Almost there.." Dixie said.

"One more joke Megan, tell us just one more. Then we can color some, ok?"  
Johnny said seeing Dixie working fast.

"Mister G-Gage." Megan said not looking at her arm nor the needle there.

"Yeah, Megan?"

"Why did the turtle cross the r-road ?" Megan hiccupped.

That stymied both nurse and paramedic.

Even long after the cotton was pressed down and a Scooby Doo bandaid was stuck on Megan's arm.

Megan sighed a deep sigh and coughed hoarsely, sinking back into her pillow.  
"Give up you guys?"

"Yeah.." Johnny said with frustration,  
scratching his head.

"To get to the Shell station..." Megan said matter of factly, grabbing for her coloring book and the green pen Johnny was too slow to think to claim.

Dixie's laughter echoed down the hall as she padded away. "Megan, I promise my next visit will have no needles."

Gage still didn't get it.

"I got another joke that might be good for you to tell to your friend Chet, Mister Gage."  
Megan said industriously coloring the grass around her horse.

"Oh? ...what's that?"

"If H 2 0 is on the inside of a fire hydrant, what is on the outside?"

"I give up.."

"K 9 P."

"Oh, Megan.. That's gross. " Gage said laughing.

"But it's true. Dogs like hydrants."

Johnny grimaced and got off Megan's bed and clambered into his own, pulling back the covers.  
"You don't gross out much at icky stuff or that kind of thing do you?"

"Mister Gage. I got three brothers at home." Megan said in a no nonsense duhhh tone.

"Oh, uh, ok, then I'll tell you one Chet told me the other day."

"Ok,.. shoot.. Just make sure it isn't a shot." Megan quipped.

"Deal.. Ok, here goes. Last week, firemen rescued a man who was badly injured in a car accident. The entire left half of his body was torn off. He was taken to the hospital and examined.... Ready for the punch line?"

Megan's mouth was hanging open and she was grinning ear to ear. She nodded eagerly, thoroughly cute faced. "What happened to the man?"

"Oh,.. nothing much, really. The doctors said he was all right and the nurses said there wasn't ..much left."

Megan's squeal of delight caused more than a few heads in the hallway to look up from the pediatric ward's desk.

----------------------------------------------------------

Photo : Roy bagging a child with doctors and nurses in a treatment room.

Photo : A little girl coloring in a hospital bed.

Photo : Gage in a hospital bed.

*  
From : Cory Anda Sent : Thursday, December 18, 2003 8:35 PM Subject : Bonds and Brice and Everything Not Nice...

Mike Stoker pulled E 51 neatly back into her place in the station vehicle bay and distastfully peeled out of his smoky jacket and helmet. He didn't head for the kitchen and the warming promise of the coffee pot. Instead, he headed for the showers. "Man, I stink. Remind me never to volunteer to coordinate a basket rescue, Cap. I swear the sulfur fumes dyed my hair funny colors." Mike sighed, coughing as he slammed the driver's door shut. He began looking at his head and combing through his mop with fussy fingers using the spot mirror.

"I know it did mine. The curl's gone out of it, too,  
and my mustache feels awfully slimy." Chet moaned. Lopez didn't need any prompting to start washing down all the turnouts and air bottles free of the chemical stains affixed upon them from the warehouse fire.

"It was bad." Hank laughed good naturedly as every one else followed Stoker's good idea to get into the showers to clean up. " Mike, your air bottle was stained greenish olive. Didn't you notice it?..."

"No." he chuckled. "I guess I was too happy that we got the kid out." Stoker craned a neck around the corner of the hall into the bay to see the bottle Marco was spraying off in the back yard. The Latin American fireman was holding Boot away at leg's length with a shoe to keep him from drinking the chemical filled runoff trailing down the sidewalk to the parking lot drain.

"Hey Marco. Let me see it!" Stoker shouted.

Lopez looked up from his liberal garden hosing and held up the offending apparatus gingerly, showing it off like a fisherman's trophy. "Nothing like caustic smoke for a change in wardrobe." Then he faked a French fashion designer's accent." My humble audience, let me introduce you to .  
the new mossy chartreuse shade of SCBA tank, sure to allow perfect camouflage in all kinds of daytime and nightime brush fires with the least amount of eye clashing distrac--"

"Lopez..." shotgunned a voice of authority.

"Yeah, Cap?" Lopez sputtered, thrown off his joking tirade.

"Can it and let's get presentable. You're to have the chow on before DeSoto gets back. He's gonna hate the fact that Brice is filling in for the rest of Gage's night shift. I want us all defumagated for supper or at least in time before our next rescue call so speed it up a little. You got five minutes to finish the wash. Comprende?"

"Perfectly. Listen Cap, is that little girl gonna make it?"

"Roy said she was breathing ok, only needing help with a lightly used ambu, when he left in the rig. Gage was doing fine, too, with no real signs of serious concussion cropping up at all, he said."

"That's good."

"What's for dinner by the way?" Cap said, shooing the giggling others into the locker room with get a move on look.

"Chicken burritos."

"Sounds delicious. I'm sure Craig will enjoy those too, once he gets here from 10's." Cap's toothy grin disappeared in the darkness.

Marco grumbled as he hung the last scrubbed jacket on its hook to drain. "Double chore duty.  
It's not fair. I get fire cleanup and KP detail just because Gage gets himself winged enough to be declared unfit for duty. My turn was supposed to rotate in NEXT week for cooking.." he mumbled to Boot who was eyeing the water trickling down the sewer grill in the pavement.  
The shaggy mutt began tilting his head at the funny echoey noises cascading upwards from far below.

Boot whined and sat down in sympathy at Marco's feet.

"Yeah, I know how you feel.." Marco sighed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Craig..!" Cap beamed, rising in his chair to greet Johnny's paramedic replacement.

Hastily, the gang rose in their seats, too, as Craig Brice walked through the kitchen door, each nodding greetings and handing over a plateful of chow or offering a coffee mug.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I've already eaten. Meyers chili is quite sufficient for good nourishment. And I've had plenty.." Brice said drawly and smoothing down his spotless shirt over his non existent paunch. "But I will take you up on your offer of coffee. We've had quite a night."

"So have we.." Marco moaned. "An explosives factory fire."

Brice nodded. "I heard your run toned out. Then later, I heard Johnny's Code I over the radio..." Craig set down his mug without drinking from it and asked. "I know it's against regulations to divulge information about patient conditions.." Craig broke off, trying another way to express himself and what he wanted to know.."But we got a fire of our own before I heard any news about Gage."

Chet couldn't resist. "Brice.. You? Seeking to bend the regulations?  
Now this is very interesting.." he said rubbing his squeaky clean mustache. "I never would've dreamed that you even cared about Johnny in the slightest.."

"Why wouldn't I inquire about a colleague's health? I'm only asking out of professional courtesy.." Brice shrugged, nonplussed. "So I ask again, if I may, Captain. How is Mr. Gage doing?"

The others moused down with amused grins when Cap hesitated on his reply.

"Maybe I can answer that.." Roy said from the doorway, smiling as he tossed his helmet onto the top of the squad's roof without looking.

The gang celebrated his return with congratulations and heart felt warm back slapping.

DeSoto took the chair and coffee and steaming supper offered to him graciously. "Johnny asked me to tell you all how he's doing so any special rule no longer applies, Cap. He's got a mild concussion and some smoke inhalation but nothing else to really sweat over. Brackett says he can be released in the morning for light duty. Megan the little girl's gonna be ok, too. She woke up off my support after five minutes under aggressive hyperbaric treatment and now she and Johnny are roommates in Room 415, pediatric floor."

Chet guffawed, "The kid's wing? Oh, he's gonna hate that."

Roy smiled slightly. "Now I wouldn't say that. I ran into Dixie again just as I was finishing my followup exam and she said Johnny and Megan are getting to be fast friends. She said their laughter's so loud you could hear it all the way out to the nurse's desk." he giggled.

The guys fell silent.

Chet spoke up to break the quiet. "Now are you sure she's sure what she heard up there? The Johnny I know wouldn't usually come within ten feet of a kid unless they were in dire need of rescuing or something."

A chorus of agreement from all the guys, including a nod from Brice, chimed in around Roy making him throw up his hands in defense. "I know what Dixie said and I'm inclined to believe her.  
There's something special about Megan. I felt it when I was with her, even when she was unconscious. She made my parenting instincts surge big time, e-even more than they usually do for any kid I'm taking care of."

"Yeah?" Marco said, taking a last bite of his refried beans.  
"That's neat." he smiled.

Chet was solemn. "Maybe Megan will rub off permanently on Gage and he'll run out and get himself married to some chick just so he can have his OWN kid."

"Stranger things have happened.." DeSoto grinned, playing with his marriage band around his finger. "At any rate. I think Johnny's got himself a new lifelong friend. Dixie says they're bonding pretty tight."

"This I gotta see." Kelly piped up, reaching for the phone.

Cap grabbed him by the elbow as he passed by his chair.  
"Hold on a minute there Kelly. Didn't you see what time it is?  
Visiting hours are over. Now let's do the dishes before---"

Eeee Oooo EeeeEEEEeeeeeeeeee.  
##Station 36. Engine 10. Stations, 51, 112. Foam truck 127.  
Battalion 14. Stations 8 and 99. LAX reports an airliner in distress en route to Los Angeles from San Diego. Los Angeles Headquarters reports a Condition Orange is now in effect.##

"Let's go!" Hank said, hustling his men. "We'll get where they want us on the move.."

Roy shivered a deep chill and he and Brice's eyes met in a glance. "A crash is imminent..."

"Yeah, but where are they projecting one?" Brice asked as he handed Roy his helmet before sliding into the squad's seat.

"Now that's anybody's guess.." DeSoto said flipping on the squad's lights and siren so they cut urgently into the night as they headed down the boulevard towards the direction of the LAX.

Unbidden, Boot uncharacteristically jumped inside the engine as Chet was coming aboard her.

Stoker had the Ward in motion before Kelly could shoo him off. "All right ya crazy mutt, you're along for the ride.  
But in you'll stay!" Chet admonished the dog from where he sat, gripping the station mascot's chin as they both bounced as the engine turned streetward.

Silently, the station main doors rolled shut in the darkness as both emergency vehicles sped away.

--------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Cap, Roy talking with Brice in the kitchen.

Photo: Chet and Marco discussing a matter.

Photo: The Station at night.

Photo: The Engine and Squad rushing down a night street.

Photo: An airliner in midflight, too close to the ground.

*  
From : Cassidy Meyers Sent : Friday, December 19, 2003 6:58 AM Subject : Wing and a Prayer

The fire chief in his speeding car, called the red phone in the main LAX air traffic control tower over his closed frequency CB radio. "Ground Crew Three, this is L.A.  
County. What do you have? We're en route and deployed in a full radius surrounding the airport."

Another fire department captain, manning a communications panel next to the air traffic controllers handling the inbound emergency, spoke. "A Boeing 747, suffering hydraulic malfunction in its right wing elevators. The flight crew reported only partial control of their aircraft. Two minutes ago, the controllers received an automated cabin decompression warning and so far, they've only had a quick spotty transmission back from the pilots specifying the number of souls on board. 135. Apparent damage has made all further communication with the cockpit impossible, the tower says they're receiving, but the pilots are not answering comm anymore."

"Sounds like they've got their hands full just flying. Where are they?"

"Twenty nine miles out at about 2600 feet and closing on a final approach vector,....oops a change, now turning .....070 degrees NW." he replied from what he saw on the screen.  
Captain Robert Osby replied to McConnikee. "They're losing altitude more than they're maintaining a level." he said, parroting what his tower aide was telling him in his other ear.

"Ok.. worst case scenario applies.." Chief McConnikee. "Let's assume they won't make the airport. Give me impact locations.  
Best guesses. I have seven stations out."

Osby rubbed his lined face and studied the radar, watching where his aide pointed. "Batallion, tower says the Torrence neighborhood. East of the 101 expressway."

"10-4. That's where we'll be.." McConnikee said. "Keep me posted. Good luck with your crews if they manage to land."

McConnikee relayed his new information to L.A. dispatch and one by one, the responding stations rolling diverted to waiting positions surrounding the affluent suburb. The chief himself placed his unit on an exit ramp in sight of the airport and the main bowl of the city of Torrence. Shortly afterwards, black and white police cars roared up his exit ramp to help open traffic for Station Ten, following just behind them.

The chief tipped his white hat when the engineer blew his airhorn twice in a salute as he rushed by in a flurry of red lights.

The chief picked up his main mic. "Station Ten. Position yourselves east of Dwight, along Nile Street. Park and wait. You're gonna be spotters until she's down."

##Engine 10, 10-4. #  
## Squad 10 stands ready.##

A heavy feeling gripped McConnikee's gut when silence finally fell a minute later when all units reported they were set in place and position. He committed their locations and identities to memory. "It'll be a cold day in h*ll before we're through here."

The chief scanned the night sky now emergency cleared of traffic for the out of control incoming airliner. A wavering, unsteady point of light from a lone aircraft's transponder and alarmingly flickering cabin lights caught the chief's attention to his left and he held his breath when his radio crackled.

##We've a visual on 182. Looks like they're nose down#  
came Osby's tense report. "1600 , .....1550..."

"I see them. They're above Torrence proper over the restaurant district. They've cleared the freeway." McConnikee confirmed, kicking his car into gear as he sped onto a main avenue,  
following the flight path he could see. Then he lost his line of sight just as he heard the roar of over compensating air brakes through the open window. Several buildings were in the way of the smoky exhaust trail he could see spinning groundwards.  
The noise of jet engines in desperate compensation began to echo around the structures McConnikee could see. "May G*d have mercy on their souls." he whispered softly as the plane sank lower and lower.

----------------------------------------------------------------

At the intersection of 38th Street and El Cajon Boulevard where Stoker had the engine idling in wait. Chet Kelly climbed out and carried Boot from the back cab to Cap's side of the window.

"Guess who came along for the ride..? Hiya, Cap." Kelly said, waving one of Boots paws through the window pane at Hank.

"Hey hey..Wonder why he did that?" Cap said, opening the door of the Ward and stepping out to scrub Boot behind the ears.  
"That's a good dog but you aren't winning any brownie points for coming with us. Yess.." he crooned, forgetting for the moment the disaster to come. His face lit up with the flashes of red from the engine's lights and with a short faint smile.

Hank looked up as Brice and DeSoto joined them to lean against the Ward. They still had their helmets on.  
"Have you heard how long, Cap?" Roy asked quietly.

Cap's expression fell into business and he said. "Kelly, put Boot back inside and buckle him and yourself up. Could be anytime, Roy. Chief said he'll broadcast once he has a better idea of where they'll end up. He has a channel open to the tower."

Roy rubbed his arms in the night chill and glanced around at the horizon.

In the distance lay familiar outlines of buildings he knew well, with their lights glowing brightly in the darkness amid the blue fire of the street lamps. "I hope at least someone manages to make it." he said quietly to the warming wind rising from the engine's chassis.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo : Cap on an HT by the engine at night.

Photo: A speeding squad 51 and engine in a quiet midnight neighborhood.

Photo: A night sky full of stars.

*  
From : patti keiper Sent : Friday, December 19, 2003 11:17 PM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] And Then There Was One...

Kel Brackett and Dixie McCall were in the nurses lounge watching a bit of the Tonight Show on their late night break when the EBS radio down the hall in the base station went off in a rare unscheduled dissident whistle tone and repeated in a series of triple bleeps bone chillingly.

Both of them slammed down their coffee mugs and cigarettes and ran to overhear the official address issuing forth from the speaker above the main reception desk and so did a crowd of emergency room staff a few seconds later.

Noisy babble from people demanding to know what was happening made the radio sound dampened and muted. ## ...advises a confirmed Condition Orange. Nature of emergency is an LAX inbound flight Boeing 747 with 135 passengers.... ##

"Shhh.. I have to hear.." Brackett snapped at the milling throng of medical people around him.  
"Folks.. Just pipe down.. Now!"

Dixie was a firm directive with an even louder voice of authority. "This is a Condition Orange Alert and it's real and that's all you staffers need to know. Everybody scatter to your assigned positions and duties.  
Pronto. " Dixie's face waxed pleading and reluctant. "And try to keep those families and patients here in the ER happy. I don't want there to be more trouble than we already have going on right now."  
Joe Early, Mike Morton quieted into what qualified as listening while those nurses, interns and residents in lesser departments started scrambling for extra supplies, and set about preparing the still open treatment rooms for double duty.  
Three student nurses began summoning more staff in on emergency recall from off duty by telephone.

Brackett, Morton and Early leaned in once more into the EBS address speaker. ##....evidence of cabin decompression. Potential heavy casualties on the ground are expected. Flight 182 has overshot all sparsely populated regions and has been spotted losing altitude over a municipally classed residential zone. All fire and military emergency response stations have been activated....Repeat...This is a Condition Orange Alert..##

Rampart General was kicked into overdrive and ready for anything in the space of just short minutes. Dr. Brackett was equally as coolly efficient."What's our current capacity?"

Joe rubbed his hand in deep thought. "Admissions says we're at 91% occupancy. UCLA Harbor is at 95%, L. Hospital is sitting at 97% And Bayside General's the worst of all. They're topped off completely and redirecting all ambulance run traumas and major medicals to other emergency care providers."

Dr. Brackett frowned. "Hmmm, Guess we're on our own for the majority of any potential mass casualty admissions. Rampart's at 91%?"

"Uh huh.." McCall nodded.

Mike's chin wrinkled firmly. "That leaves ......50 beds open for us. How many surgical wards do we have available?" Morton asked.

Dixie's answer was swift. "Seven. Room Fourteen's just finished up on a bronchoscopy patient left over from 51's warehouse fire from this afternoon. She's just arrived in recovery."

"Get that team ready to receive, too." Kel ordered.  
"Joe, Mike, those rooms have priority. If those airliner passengers are given opportunities of making it off that wreck with a pulse, I wanna make sure that ours have at least one chance each of surviving the ordeal."

"Right." said Morton, Joe and Dixie. They darted in three directions to implement the changes.

"Oh, and Dix..." said Brackett.

"Yes, Kel?"

"Let's keep all new arrivals from the crash site out of the pediatric ward. They've dealt with enough noise for one night.."

A smirk played across Dixie's classic features.  
"Are you referring to a certain young dashing paramedic and his equally rivetting four foot two child accomplice?"

Brackett's face contorted. "Yes..! It's good enough they're mostly by themselves in that part of the wing because of all the new construction. There's not many around them tonight to suffer the consequences of being within earshot! Dix, send someone to quiet them down, huh? Send a candy stripper, an orderly,...the pizza man! Or anyone.. for that matter. Just get me some peace and quiet at that nurses station..! Dr. Mendelson from neurology says he heard the entire why did the chicken cross the road one upmanship contest wafting down through the elevator shaft without even trying hard."

"Sure. I'll have the new LPN, Cheryl Adams, pay them a goodwill visit.." the head nurse winked, remarking mildly. Then her expression turned mischievious.  
"Her fifth one so far.." she purred.

"What?!" Kel said, already buried in the disaster protocol manual from the drug cabinet. His explicative was distracted and half hearted but still icy with anger.

"Just kidding..." Dixie said in humor, and she headed briskly off for the elevators to direct supply carts and newly arriving off scheduled staffers to where they would be most needed.

Kel twitched.

"I was joking..." Dixie trickled, smoothing out the wrinkles on his shoulder.

Brackett's reply was just a long suffering growl. "Go..."

"I'm gone.." she puffed.

Controlled chaos filled all three doctors' senses as they waited for the fire department paramedic base station in the glass cubicle to light up in sudden urgent multiple summons.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A deep chest rending roar bent the palm trees over Station 51's crew's heads as 182's smoking fuselage of street lit red and silver shot by at 360 knots barely 200 feet above them.

The entire aircraft was inverted upside down.

"Holy mother of..." Marco gasped.

CRASHHH-HHH-HHHHHhhhhh!!

*screechHHHh* BOOM!!!

A wave of explosive concussion slammed the waiting firemen against the engine and making them fall to the ground in a protective duck and cover, while the ground shifted and shook in a outgoing wave of reaction.

Before the ugly yellow and lava colored fireball nimbus had faded, Cap knew where the jet had impacted. The one building outline flared impossibly bright by raw plasma had been unmistakably familiar to him. "Rampart!!"

"What?!" gasped Chet Kelly for the stunned others.

"Shush a minute and let me talk. "  
Captain Stanley silenced him.."Do we have any injuries among us?" he said sharply.

"Uhhh,..n-no." said Lopez for all of them while they brushed off dirt and freshly shorn palm fronds from their backs, legs and faces.

"Then on your feet, gang. Now!..We haven't a moment to lose. To answer your question., *cough* Yes, they went down at Rampart!" Hank sobbed, barely in control.

"Are you sure?" Brice said, rising and running for the squad two steps behind Roy. "That explosion could have gone up anywhere. There's dozens of office buildings in that direct--"

"I know that silhouette better than my own station's, Brice!  
I'm more than sure! Now get the lead out and just go!" Hank shouted, sprinting for the Ward La France's side door. "Stoker.  
Once around the rig to make sure she's intact! Then put the pedal to the metal, pal. Avoid the main drags. Gawkers are bound to snarl those big time. The night life crowd's in full swing. Get us there side streets! My guess is that kind of route's gonna put us two and a half miles out.

"I'll get us there in four mics, Cap."

"Make it three.."

"Done."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Johnny Gage felt the rumble before he heard it. He had slipped into just a pair of jeans to feel more at home when the hairs began to rise on the back of his neck.  
"What th--?" His face turned unbidden toward the venetian blinds in the window and a patch of fire orange growing there.

Megan stirred in her half sleep. "What's the matter, Mr.  
Gage? Is it 'nother quake like the one we got last week?"

In slow motion, Johnny's hand parted the curtains.

The outline of a disintegrating flaming jet was cartwheeling vertically towards them as if in a horrific nightmare, crushing cars in Rampart's parking lot into smaller exploding gasoline stains as it came.

"Oh Sh*t! !! ..Megan...! Get down!"

Johnny Gage had time enough to snatch the little girl and her IV bag with him into a crouch behind a bed when all the glass windows on that side of Rampart imploded inwards in a rain of ballistic metallic debris and raw fire.

------------------------------------------------------------

Photo : Rampart's Emergency Department driveway by day.

Photo: An airliner crash explosion near a white building.

Photo: Dixie McCall and Kel Brackett watching TV in the nurses lounge.

Photo: Joe Early on the EBS red phone with Dixie nearby.

Photo: Johnny screaming in closeup, surrounded by fire.

*  
From : Roxy Dee Sent : Friday, February 6, 2004 11:25 PM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Aftermath~~

Captain Stanley licked his lips nervously as Stoker sped the Ward around increasingly damaged patches of earth. He saw no other red lights yet in the area. ::Looks like I'll be the highest ranking official in the area for at least a little while. So I'd better have at it.::

From behind him, Cap heard Marco breathe a sigh of relief.  
"Looks like the hospital's still intact. Only the windows are knocked out. Their power's still on."

"Yeah, but is it from the main towers or their backup generators?"  
asked Hank over the roar of the sirens.

"Does it matter?" Chet retorted, straightening his helmet as the engine wove its way closer to the forty foot wall of fire hiding the airliner's impact crater."We'll be able to see what we're doing man.."

Cap snatched up his microphone and broadcast wide band.  
## L.A. Station 51 is at scene, approaching from the south. Our aircraft has impacted nose down in the parking lot and seems to have effected part of the adjacent neighborhood of ....Dwight Street and Nile. We're seeing multiple jet fuel and magnesium based debris fires and a dozen automobile ignition points in a two block radius. As yet, we have no evidence of survivors from the plane. Beginning initial search for ground victims and laying down immediate water source reconnaissance. I repeat, fire is not evident inside Rampart Hospital. Noting window damage only. ##

Hank spigotted the radio mic and heard Chief McConnike start his plan of attack using his reported information. Cap coughed on the stench of kerosene and smelled citrus trees from the nearby yards baking in the fire. But he was relieved to hear his superior begin the stream of relief and rescue to the disaster zone nightmare of scent and sight and noise that was assaulting his senses.

He signalled Stoker to lay in regular air blasts from the engine's siren apparatus to encourage survivors and notify other companies as to his station's position despite the choking columns of smoke concealing their lights in the lurid nighttime darkness.

Chief McConnike's voice was still clear and calm, not effected by the rising fumes that marked the place where passengers from the plane had perished, when it came over the speakers seconds later. ##All companies approach line of sight encircling the debris field in a full 360 degree radius. Use the black areas away from fires' glow upwind of smoke to find safe places to set up your command posts. Foam Units 127, 36, 118, 95 and 106 move into the main crash site by Station 51. They're near ground zero and blasting their air horn to mark their location. Begin your covering support and knock down any burning automobiles first to make a path for the second wave rescue teams.

I'm hereby ordering 51 and Station 8 to sweep first line in for any casualties originating from the ground. Recovery teams, keep from disturbing any found fatalities as much as possible. Mark and cover the remains only.

Companies moving in from the perimeter, make no attempt to use water on the magnesium blaze surrounding the Boeing's shell. It'll have no effect. Secondary stand by rescue squads and ambulance teams, coordinate with law enforcement authorities to keep all non essential civilians out of the immediate area. This includes all the press types and military personnel who aren't fire departmentally trained.

"Inner response teams: Prevent absolutely everyone from trying to leave the hospital proper. They'll all be much safer inside the structure than outside because of the large quantity of ignited jet fuel present amid all of these still potentially explodable cars sandwiched around the south side of the building. ##

Echoes of radio hails and acknowledgements bounced off the city light and fire reflected white hulk of Rampart eerily. From where he stood, McConnikee could see patient faces numbly peering down at him from the shattered ruin of all the windows. Soon, white and blue garbed others came to take those shocked eyes away in evacuation to safer areas across the opposite corridors. ::This is H*ll on Earth folks, I know. But not for long. Just hang tough and soon you'll see the City of Angels fight back for its own..::he thought fervently. ::All 406 of us:  
he calculated counting the flashers of all the engines laid out in a ring around Rampart.

------------------------------------------------------------

Chet Kelly startled when unexpected vertical movement amid expected carnage caught his jumpy eye. His shock quickly turned to anger when that motion spelled out spectator over possible victim. Fury exploded from his lips as he adjusted the hose path he and Mike Stoker were using off the neighborhood corner hydrant at their assigned row of torn houses given to them to search through.

"Already they're starting! Man.. I just hate that.  
What kind of sicko does it take for someone to go out looting in a place like this ?" Kelly spat,  
kicking up dust around his boots.

"The ones who think they can get away with it." Stoker's quiet reply came back, equally sharp as he moved their fanning spray over some violated lawn.

"Yeah? Well not while I'm on the job, they're not."  
Hit 'em Stoker.. " Chet challenged. "Feel free.."

Mike jerked and shouted. When his commands to leave immediately were ignored by the looting crowd, he let loose with an untapered knifesteam of icy water at all their full hands and turned backs, scattering their ill gotten booty across the debris field. He made sure that they couldn't retrieve anything again by sending loudly protesting black clothed forms rolling away into the darkness under the naked force of his hose. A shout rose up as one male cry marked the audible but unseen location of a bruising impact.

"Oooo.. Easy Mike... What if you hurt them doing that?"  
Kelly winced.

"What if they hurt victims' relatives even more by taking the deceased's wedding rings and other stuff?" Stoker countered,  
not letting up his barrage on those he could reach.

"Oh. Good point. Go ahead and nail it home, buddy. For them." he said, sweeping a glove over the sad remains of the plane passengers lying twisted and bare all around them.

Hank Stanley's sharp retort came rapidly.  
##Engine 51, I said no water near the airliner#  
crackled Chet and Stoker's HT's.

Chet peeled off a soggy glove and thumbed the talk button. "Sorry HT 51, just...we were just, well, cleaning up.."

"Cleaning up what? We were told to disturb as little as possible."

"Cleaning up pond scum, Cap, the vilest kind."

##Oh....## came a chastened reply when Hank finally got the message.## That's different. Keep it up then, but don't fry your keesters in the process in a magnesium flare.##

"We won't."

##Good men. Eerrr.. How's it coming?##

Chet fought his way over yet another pile of shattered wood and metal smoulders which he shouldered out of his way.  
"Think we found one that's a death on the ground. Cap, under a blown in door inside the house designated B west of the main intersection."

##How can you tell?##

"Looked like a senior who'd been burned fatally, she's still holding a phone receiver."

There came a noise of pain from the other end of the HT that was quickly stifled. ##Mark her location down on your notes and search on you two. Keep reporting the ground and plane DOA's like you are and wave on recovery personnel for live ones.  
Squad 51's handling the fuselage vicinity on the remote chance anyone aboard survived the impact.##

"Yes sir. Marking...House B as ground victim number five. We're now on the move at... Dwight and...Victory Lane.."

## Ok, I've got your current position noted. ......HT 51?## came a further hail.

"Go." Stoker said tightly as he watched Chet cover the woman in the house even as he glared at the soaked retreating looters.

##I'm sending Vince and a full support team your way to flush out any more of those rats. Save your water for the spot fires when you can.##

"We'll be glad to have them. Looks like we found some more with full sacks just ahead." He grinned when a telltale, unmistakable collection of noises drifted his way on the bitter smelling night wind. "Sounds like the lot of them are getting sick behind the row of smouldering palm tree stumps by House D down the road on your side. Serves them right for even coming in here."

##10-4. Watch for the police from the north, Kelly. ##

"Like a hawk." he coughed quietly.

##And keep your everloving rears safe, you two.  
Shots have been heard on your side of the debris field,  
west of the air liner's impact crater.##

"You're kidding." Mike interjected into his plastic covered walkie talkie, dragging the laden hose further along towards the sound of stunned looters.

##Wish I was, pal.##

"Understood." Kelly added firmly.

##HT 51 out.## Mike Stoker and Chet Kelly could almost hear their Cap's nod over the closing company frequency.

-  
Roy tried not to look at the fourth floor of Rampart where he could hear shards of glass hanging from their frames tinkling like windchimes amid the fire thermals from the parking lot. ::Johnny.. I wish I'd catch your face sneaking a peek down here from your room. But, knowing you, you got your hands full with protecting little Megan right now.::

Roy's boot was about to take another step forward around a seat cushion when Craig Brice's touch on his back stopped him.  
He pointed to Roy's left with his torchlight into the darkness.

A motionless man in the wreckage, still wearing a plane oxygen mask, presented himself as more or less the sole intact shape amid the separated parts that lay strewn about from most of the other dead passengers.

Roy began using his hook to throw aside debris between him and the man when Brice's grip tightened on his air bottle, pulling him back. "DeSoto. A moment." he heard in his ear.

Still wearing hope's blinders, DeSoto gasped.  
"What? He might be one who's made it. We have no time to lose here." he shouted behind his mask. He blinked when a swirl of fuel smoke ruffled his hair.

Roy could see Brice swallowing deeply behind his air mask.  
"Look farther down below his waist. That car's front is lying across his lower half and ...and...the hood's level to our thighs and the pavement.  
You can see that plainly from here. He's been crushed badly.  
I'm sorry. He doesn't look it color wise, but he's ..he's ..undeniably dead."

Roy checked once again using Brice's analyzing flashlight as a guide, and saw that Craig's observation was the correct one,  
illuminating fully dialated and blood cloudy pupils. Life had indeed fled for the man almost instantly when gravity and inertia had brought the car tumbling down onto his passenger seat.

::J*sus. Just how many fatality presentations am I gonna see tonight that they don't teach you from a textbook?:: Roy's mind interjected mercilessly. "How about giving me one that we can turn around here." he mumbled at Craig in muted thanks for saving him some useless exertion.

"Working on it. Praying for it, too." came Brice's reply. "Give me time. I always find a live one. You know that."

"Just don't fail me partner. I need a lift right about now."

----------------------

Kelly moved forward into House C, a neighbor of the phoning victim,  
and jolted his body and nerves yet again when an 8X10 photo suddenly drifted down from the air, hitting him on the helmet. Reflexively, Chet caught the bit of paper and turned its soggy gloss into his torchlight.

It was a picture of four stewardesses that could only have come from the ill fated airliner. Each of them wore pink and orange polyester mini skirts with matching gogo boots and gay, brightly colored navy type hats amid stylish curls.

Kelly gasped and froze in horror, until Stoker felt the drag of the hose behind him fall slack when Chet let go of his end of the charged line.

"Find something?" Mike asked quietly, knocking his annoying hanging mask yet again away from his knees.

Kelly lied.. "No. Let's just get to the next house."  
he said shoving the photo into a crack almost violently,  
away from him.

Chet knew right then that he had been stabbed in the heart. Those frozen smiling two dimensional faces plunged deep inside his protective mental veneer and he shivered involuntarily as his world suddenly swam at this confrontation of his one weakness as a firefighter. :: No! No more reminders like that, please. :: he whispered to the stars above the smoke like a litany. .::Let them all be faceless... Please. I don't want to recognize anything about these people lying around me. It'll be easier. Please.. No faces.. N-no f:  
It was Kelly's turn to bump into Stoker at their next turn bending into a collapsed garage still filled with a shiny silver parked BMW.

"Got someone.." Stoker said gruffly. "Go look while I snuff out this small fire.."

Chet worked his way around aircraft metal and roofing beams until he could peer inside the car through a windshield smashed inwards from the outside. Kelly saw pink and orange cloth on just a torso. "Plane..." he said, backing hastily away.

"You sure? That was awfully fast."

"D*mmit Stoker. Yes, I'm sure. I saw a photo back there in the rubble of the last house of the plane's flight attendants.  
And they were dressed like... like..." his voice strangled into a sob.

Mike Stoker gripped Kelly's shoulder tightly while his other glove handed Chet the trickling hose. "Here. Just hold this and don't watch,  
Chet. " Kelly closed his eyes in spinning horror as he fought his montrous inner fear and just willed himself to breathe to prevent himself from passing out.

Mike's voice was almost soothing and cut through the roaring in Chet's head like a balm. Kelly anchored onto it like a lifeline. "I'm pulling a tarp over this and someone else now. I got the hose fully drawn up to us. Just go. The fire's out." Mike said gently.

"Appreciate it, man.." Chet said making tracks for the rising daylight they could see flickering above the clouds of ash and soot coming from the devastated neighborhood and hospital parking lot. He could barely contain his nausea. "Why is it always the photos which get me?" he asked himself. "I'm a rock with anything else.."

::Because you have photos of friends and family just like they do in your wallet..:: came his own ruthless conscience silently.

::Sorry I asked..:: his mind whispered to itself as Kelly finally found balance in an unscathed flower pot still sitting where it rested next to a dewy copper metal watering can on House D's white porch railing. Water drops from his hose made the shasta daisies inner eyes glow in the dawn sunlight.  
"Who's the second one, Stoker?"

"Pilot."

Sighing and shaking, Chet Kelly raised his HT to his lips and reported the finding of two more air plane victims.

Then his firefighting cool reestablished itself when his brain began working again. "Stoker..."

"Yeah?"

"If we found those two, the cockpit can't be far away.  
Won't officials want to get their hands on the flight recorder as soon as possible?"

"They sure would."

"What color is one from a Boeing? I can't remember."

"Red, I think."

"Terrific.. I wonder what the lame brain who thought up that shade was thinking when he designed it."

"Don't be morbid."

"Kinda hard staying positive just about now. I'd do anything to find someone with a pulse."

"Reach over and feel mine then. Anytime. I'm really glad you're here with me, too." he said sarcastically, barely abreast of his own fear and stress.

Kelly chuckled and groped for Stoker's carotid. "Just so you check mine, too, periodically. I feel like I'm numb all over."

"Numbness is bliss at a disaster scene. Wish for that pure emotional novocaine each time at one, Kelly.. What's my rate at now? Feels like 180 just slamming into my chest."

Chet's hand never touched Stoker's skin.  
"Would you look at them?" Chet said, his grin at Mike's rejoiner falling away once again into deep tortured pain.

"Look at who?" Stoker coughed, peeling off his hot helmet to let the hot wind dry his hair.

"Them..." Kelly said pointing.

A rescue searcher and his dog crouched tightly in an embrace,  
comforting each other across the street on a block of concrete raised slightly above the level of the dead. As yet, the human had made no sound. But the labrador was trembling.

"Come on, let's give them some privacy." Chet said.  
"Looks like they've already checked that last side of the block ahead of us. Let's try and find that recorder thing like good little fast firemen, hmm?"

-  
Roy looked up to see what row of cars they were currently next to in comparison with the hospital's outline looming above.

He could just see the fourth floor and Johnny and Megan's patient room window. It was one in the shatter zone. ::Be safe, junior.  
We're coming. Just whatever you do, don't get the crazy idea in that idiotic head of yours to move around with the girl to free yourselves from what you think is danger. I never versed you on the realities of a large plane crash scenario and about the fires that come from one. Magnesium burns can't be barreled through, Johnny. They're far far hotter than you can ever hope to expect ..or survive.::

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unseen, behind a preoccupied Cap and Chief McConnikee,  
Boot wormed his way out of the Ward and went arrowing towards Ground Zero and Rampart as fast as his hairy legs could carry him.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Cap giving an order in closeup.

Photo : Tumbled cars by a shattered building in daylight.

Photo: Impact crater of an airliner into a residential neighborhood.

Photo: Chet looking down, sad and quiet.

Photo: A photo of stewardesses in 1970's uniforms, pink and orange.

Photo: A rescue worker hugging his rescue dog.

Photo: Roy looking up, tense, in an air bottle.

Photo: A deceased airplane victim lying on the ground.

*  
From : patti keiper Sent : Wednesday, February 11, 2004 11:55 PM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] One Step At A Time...

Johnny Gage coughed, and pushed a fallen bedstand table off his shoulders. He immediately looked down.  
"Megan?"

The tiny burden in his arms stayed quiet, her eyes half lidded around tinges of blood.

Gage bent close over her nose and mouth and he sighed gratefully when he felt slight puffs of warm wetness dampen the stinging cuts on his cheek from her strong even breathing.

He eased the nine year old off his knees and onto the floor gingerly, his eyes sweeping her body for the reason why she was unconscious. Apart from places where the window glass had sliced her skin, his hands only found her over full coloring pen pouch bag that she was still wearing around her waist like a fanny pack and no other sign of serious injury.

The hallway outside their patient room door was amass with shouts and seniors crying down the hall. Hustling nursing staff around the central desk were trying to regain control of the crowd of patients awakened by the plane crash.

An orderly's voice was loudest, and it was coming nearer, checking the one room down the construction scaffolded hallway that he knew was occupied and facing the direction of the crash. "Hey! Anybody still down here?!" boomed an African American voice. "You gotta move to a room across the hall to get away from those broken windows.."

Gage wiped a trail of blood out of his eyes and looked up at his room's door, scratched and impaled by the shards of glass that had been driven there from air pressure.

The light over Megan's bed sputtered fitfully from debris that had damaged its ballast. It only enhanced the pale color of the little girl's cool skin. "Yeah! In 415. Me and a little girl! Get us out of here! The smoke's coming in."

"All right, I'm almost there. Stay put mister!" came the unseen voice of the orderly. "I'm coming in. You two hurt any?"

"Megan's out but I've got a good airway on her. She's gonna need some serious O2. She took some glass into her eyes and yes, her IV line's intact."

"How about you?"

::Yeah, how about me?:: Johnny thought. He hadn't even considered himself. ::I must look a sight right about now:  
He ran experimental hands over his chest, head and back and they came away bloodied but sharp pain or areas of numbness didn't announce themselves. "Not finding anything at all. Just some leftover dizziness from a sleeping pill I took an hour ago. I'm not shocky in the slightest."

"Sounds like you're very certain of that." came the voice and soon came rough aggressive noises that showed the hospital man was pushing aside construction tarps, shelving and paint carts out of his way right by Gage and Megan's room.

"I should sound certain. I'm a fireman paramedic. *cough* Hurry, the air's going to turn real bad. We gotta get her out of here." Gage got back down onto the floor and rolled Megan onto a sheet he ripped free from his bed and he started dragging her behind him across the floor towards the door just beneath the oily smoke layer that was pooling into the violated room.

"Working on it. Looks like people panicking out here pushed an equipment cart over into scaffoulding and the whole lot's tipped against your door! See if you can crack it open." came the man's exerted voice. "I got most of it gone."

Johnny felt once more for the quality of Megan's carotid pulse before he crawled nearer to the wooden door that he could see bouncing in its hinges from the impacts the orderly was making trying to free more space around the door's handle latch.

New stabs of pain bit into his blue jeaned knees and his bare palms as debris shards cut them. He moved closer to the orderly's position getting ready to kept his head down in the clear air pocket near the floor only long enough to snatch a breath of untainted air. He decided to risk standing up into the blinding smoke's gasses to try his luck at speeding the escape from their room.

The rush of air that sucked in from the window when Johnny cracked the door slightly open, rapidly caused an awful stench of death to gush inside the room. ::Too close. The plane's too close to us. Aw, man..::

Briefly, Johnny saw the tangling jumble of equipment and the construction rack that still blocked his way as the fetid wind from outside finally picked a direction to flow. It decided to flow inside the hospital, thickly.

Gage shouted, not being able to see the orderly at all around the smoke that suddenly came billowing out of 415's open portal that lay between them. "This is gonna take too long, *choke* This door can't stay open, the toxic fumes are flooding in and that's the last thing we need in the hallway with all those sick patients out there, all right? Is there another way out of here for us?"

"What?"

"Just- Just think on it. We've got a minute or so to get out of here." Gage said calmly.

" Yeah.. Yeah, I think so. In the bathroom, straight back. There's an adjoining access door with a lock. Yeah, I know it for sure. Take this to open it." Johnny felt a key ring and chain being pressed into his hands. "After you get through that door, go left along the service hall. It runs behind a surgical store room. The firedoor at the end leads to the glass elevator.  
You can get out that way. ..uh, wait a minute, no you can't.  
D*mmit! I just remembered. That whole outside shaft might be damaged and non functional. It's on the crash's side." the invisible orderly quailed.

"Good enough for me. I'll take my chances. If not, I'll park us in that store room and we can wait it out safely enough.  
Now seal us off again so we can save what good air we have left. It's enough to get us out of here." Gage commanded.

"Just be careful, man. I'll tell security you'll be showing up anywhere along that route. Oh, and don't try to leave Rampart. We've been ordered by the fire department's city dispatcher to keep everybody inside no matter what."

"This is why. The powerlines in the area have to be down just about everywhere. Now, go. We'll be fine. You gotta continue your search for others who may still be trapped. We'll get out fine now that we know how."

"But,.."

"Don't worry about the little girl, she's stable.. Just go."

"Ok." The door thudded shut and Gage slid gratefully back down into the good air around his knees to try and breathe regularly.

Already, biting jet fuel was swelling up his throat and lungs. ::I'll worry about that later.:: Johnny said,  
clenching the key in his teeth. ::Thank G*d I'm used to eating smoke.:: he sighed. "Megan,...we're getting out of here. If you can hear me, just keep breathing real shallow all right?" he said coiling up a corner of her drag sheet around the better of his two lacerated wrists.

Then he remembered, his station's gang would be looking for him just as soon as the whole disaster scene had been given a quick once over for survivors. "I know Chet, he'll try ta sneak some of the guys in here at their first rest break to try and look for me for sure. But d*mmit,  
how can I tell them I got out ok?"

Then a brainstorm. Johnny reached and pulled out a handful of Megan's markers and quickly patterned out an arrow with them on a patch of floor he cleared free of black dust with an edge of Megan's sheet.  
"That'll clue them in.." he grinned. "I remembered my boy scouting days just fine.."

Johnny wormed his way into the bathroom with Megan's limp crevat and slammed the door shut behind them, sealing off the choking fumes.  
As promised, the other door was there. Gage reached up and turned on the wall light.

He startled when he saw himself in the mirror.

There wasn't an inch of him that wasn't dusty with black and blood. Quickly, he unlocked the service door with the orderly's key and the two of them fell into the still pristine air of the brightly lit hall that lay beyond it. It was utterly quiet in there and everything was eerily devoid of any sign of the ongoing disaster outside.

Johnny pocketed the door key into his jeans and bent down to recheck Megan's status. "Megan...sweety.. You with me yet, hon?" He dug a knuckle into her breast bone. Megan didn't stir, but her chest still rose and fell regularly. "That's all right. It's ok that you're unconscious, I'm gonna be happy your heart's still beating, kid. Let's go."

Gage gathered her up into his arms, holding her grimy IV bag in between his teeth as he barefooted it on tender, wounded feet down the corridor towards the surgical store room he was told to watch out for. He paused only long enough to make another arrow of markers showing the direction that he and Megan were traveling in.

As he looked for the next door, his other hand turned up Megan's IV port to wide open when the carotid pulse beneath his finger skipped a beat.

The way along was not hard to find and the next light switch Gage flipped on, revealed a stainless steel and tiled walled anesthesia gas bottle store and a cart full of surgical dressings.  
"Bingo.. but no phone." Gage coughed. "Oh well, Nothing says we can't take time for a rest stop. We're safe now."

Johnny carried Megan over to some crates and dug around a few of them until he found the right bandages to dress her eyes and her bigger still oozing wounds and even some of his own lacerations that refused to clot up.

The markings on one of the huge gas bottles surrounding them caught his eye. "Wait a minute.. That one's green. I'll just bet that's oxygen!"

It took a search but soon, Johnny located a regulator that fit the giant O2 tank. He snatched an anesthesia mask and tubing from a blue surgical paper wrapped bundle that he recognized from working in ER treatment rooms. And a child's oral airway just the right size for Megan from a plastic covered recharging crash cart. He rapidly set up the apparatus and tested it on himself,  
breathing deeply from the O2 to make sure it was the right gas and that the gas flowed well. He took a short while longer working on the mask to clear an alarming,  
rising congestion in his chest.

Then he secured Megan's airway with the oral tube and strapped the too large adult black rubber mask as well as he could over her face. Then he tended the child with a more thorough exploratory exam. "Looks like just your eyes, hon..as I thought." he concluded, wrapping both of hers up carefully with kerlix around her head until they cushioned them thickly. "These cuts are nothing."

He grabbed a BP cuff from the defib cart and took a quick palpated reading on the child to further ease his paramedic worries. "72. Fair enough for me.." he sighed,  
coughing as traces of acrid smoke lingered his chest. "A few minutes of this oxygen and I promise we're gonna get you out of here lickety split. We got a date with our coloring books to keep and we sure can't do that in here."

Grogginess from an unexpected quarter made Johnny sway and suddenly, there were two Megans lying sheeted swathed on top of the cleaning boxes. "Well maybe after I treat myself too."

He set a cannula off the regulator and strung it onto himself, breathing in the rich oxygen it delivered to try and clear his head.

He leaned on the crash cart as his head sagged down to his chest. "Maybe I'd better sit down on the floor." And suddenly, he was there, his butt bruised from falling. "Terrific.. a smoke inhalation downer already? D*mn.. W- wonder what my pressure's sittin at..." Groping, he felt his own wrist.

"No radial pulse.. that's ..that's...lower than ninety.."  
he gasped, suddenly air hungry. He felt a little higher up his arm and pressed down under his bicep at the pressure point. "Just a weak brachial.. that puts it.. somewhere near the low 80's ...*cough* systolic. Just...just wonderful.  
Last thing I need is to black out. And Megan needs to get to a doctor asap." ::And so do I..for that matter..:: his inner voice added.

The bright blue tile and steel room swam before his eyes chaotically and Johnny slid the rest of the way down the crash cart, slumping onto his back.

On the way down his elbow caught the cart and it tipped over on top of him. He grunted as a drawer of drugs shot out from their housing and hit him in the chin,  
making him see sudden stars until he rolled over to try and get some blood back into his head.

One packaged syringe rolled by his nose and it begged a familiarity to his foggy senses. "What the h*ll is that one? Can I even guess? I'm feeling pretty crappy here..."

Johnny drew in another deep breath on his O2 and strained to read the labelling. "A..t...r...o.  
*cough*..p...i.. oh, atropine. Point five milligrams.  
Easy one.." he grinned as his consciousness faded. "I sure could use some of that right about now.."

Gage's world went black before his hand obeyed a mental command to try and reach out for the medication.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Brackett looked up from the smoky, fire lit emergency doors as neighborhood residents and rescue personnel brought in highway and residential house victims in a steady stream, with annoyance. "Where's Dixie?" he snarled at a rushing candy striper, her hands full of trauma packs. "She picked a h*ll of a time for a coffee break!"

The young teenager just shrugged and fled from his rage offering a tidbit from the hospital grapevine.  
"Dr. Morton said she was headed up to Pediatrics for some reason. Hope that helps you, doctor." And she was gone amid the jumble of screaming patients and calming hospital staff in seconds.

"Yeah, I'll say it helps. It helps me raise a little blood pressure..." Dr. Brackett mumbled. He peeled off his pair of bloody gloves from the last hallway patient he briefly examined, who had been tagged triage yellow, and dropped them, without thinking, onto the floor.

He spied Mike Morton standing with a puzzled look in front of strangely quiescent silver metal elevator doors.  
"Aren't these running?" he asked Kel as the senior physician sought him out to find out why.

"Nope. Compliments of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. They want no one getting any bright ideas in their heads about heading down to ground floor trying to escape the hospital. A control measure I guess. "

"It's a d*mned stupid one if you ask me.." Mike flared. "It's hampering our patient room checks."

"I'm on your side, doctor.." Kel said, holding up defending hands. "Ease off a bit." Then he fell to guessing why Morton was still staring at the closed doors. "Why are you here, Mike. Isn't there plenty that you should be doing?"

"I just got a call from Security. They say they saw someone in white getting in the elevator before the lockdown, trying to ride it after the prohibition on use announcement. Only now, they report they can't tell on camera whether or not someone's still in there." Morton said.

"A panicking patient?"

"They don't know."

"That's odd." Kel said. "Usually the camera has a pretty good view inside the car, doesn't it?"

"Key word, pretty good."

"What's the disparity?" Brackett wanted to know.

"Anything knee high or lower,. Probably because some crazy designer thought the emergency floor phone was good enough to cover for the oversight."

That sent a chill up Kel's spine that he didn't like.  
"I now see why you're over here."

Morton nodded gravely, folding his hands over his arms. "Maintenance is on the way with a service key so I can get in there. Everybody else is busy."

"How about trying to get a fire captain? They always carry universal elevator keys."

"No one's around, Kel. But someone did report a fire dog running around our floor somewhere.. Is that close enough?"

Dr. Brackett made a face, "Hardly.."

Kel heard a shout down the corridor from a nurse calling his name. He started off to handle the problem. "Let me know what you find out."

"I'll do that.." Morton said, drumming his fingers impatiently on the inoperative buttons in front of him.

The phone at the unattended desk across from him started ringing. Morton tried to flag down a nurse to answer it but everyone was too busy with patients or crying visitors to notice.

The sound finally grated on him and he jogged over and picked up the receiver.  
"Emergency. This is Dr. Morton."

##Doctor! We've been trying to reach anybody we could. This is Carol from Pediatrics. Is Dixie all right? We saw her take some glass in the arm when the windows blew out. I wanted to help her but she just wrapped a towel around her arm before I could see anything and said she could handle it on her own. Then she got into the elevator and I lost track of her.##

"How long ago? Just now?" Morton demanded.

##No, maybe ...five, six minutes ago#  
Carol reported.

"What? She never arrived down here!"

##Doctor? I don't understand..##

Morton dropped the phone and grabbed the maintenance man he finally saw wandering aimly through the frightening sea of casualties.. "Come on, mister. Move it.. We have a nurse who may be down in here."

Mike almost opened the door through sheer super human strength as the chastened worker slowly cranked the doors ajar using his spanner jack as fast as he could get his shaking hands to turn it.

Mike jammed his skinny torso inside the growing crack in the doors and both feet almost slipped on the tan carpet that was almost completely soaked in fresh blood. A huddled unmoving female form, just as red, lay in the center of it. "Dixie?!"

"Oh my G*d." gasped the maintenance man.

Morton dropped to his knees and carefully turned Nurse McCall onto her back as he opened her airway to listen for any sign of breathing. She was doing so, very well. ::Point for us. Now:  
Just as fast, he felt her neck pulse and found it tachycardic. He looked up to the maintenance man and said, "Get in here and hold her head back so she can breathe good enough."

"Doc, I-I can't.. There's gore all over. I'll check out."

Mike eyed the man's name tag quickly with anger. "Do it, Jenkins ! She's bleeding to death from somewhere and I'm gonna need both my hands to find and handle it!"

He did so in seconds, grimacing at the warm sticky wetness soaking his knees.

Morton cut away the sleeve on Dixie's left arm and located a glass shard protruding from a gaping laceration. Blood was spurting out of it. "The main artery's been cut."

Very pale, but still upright, Jenkins offered Morton his office jacket for a compress.

Mike shook his head and just pointed to the knife of glass embedded in Dixie's arm. "Won't work that way, don't wanna push that in anymore." And he lifted up her arm high enough to reach its pressure point and rapidly bore down with both sets of fingers, pressing the vessel beneath tightly against the bone.

Then they both began shouting for all they were worth to summon some very fast help.

-  
"Mr. Gage..? Mr. Gage? Can you hear me?  
Stop playing dead and talk to me.. I'm really scared.."

"M...Megan?" Johnny's voice was a croak.

"Oh thank G*d. I woke up and heard you breathing funny down on the floor. What happened to us and why are my eyes all wrapped up?"

"Plane crash in the lot outside.. Glass dust in your eyes. Keep those on..." he said,  
trying to lift his hand to stop Megan's from pulling them off.

"Ok, I will.. What's that tube doing around your face? I felt it checking you out."

"Oxygen.. I got us out of a lot of smoke..."  
Gage said weakily without moving from where he lay. " Do me a favor huh? Do you hear that hissing sound on your right?"

"Yeah,, what is it? Gas?"

"No, it's the oxygen mask I gave you when you were.....uncon-- uh,...sleeping.. Give it to me for a sec..."

Gage saw Megan's groping hand locate it through blurry vision. He took it, foregoing the nasal cannula for its use instead. Johnny curled around the mask, sucking in great breaths from it, waiting for his head to clear enough and his body's resources to push his increasing state of shock away.

"Mr. Gage...Mr. Gage.. are you all right?  
What's wrong with you?" she said, shaking him.

"Took in some bad air hon.. I'm...just gonna be a little sick right now for a little w--" He face went slack and Megan felt her fireman friend go limp.

"Mr. Gage?.. Wake up...." She started to cry.  
"Don't scare me like this.. I...I don't know what to do..."

But then she picked up the flowing surgical mask and held it over Johnny's nose and mouth when she figured out that he must have done the same for her earlier. "Maybe this'll help him get better."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dixie..

Dixie....

Try to wake up."

McCall moaned, the sensation of still being alive coming back slowly to her spinning senses.

" We've managed to stop all the bleeding in your arm. You're going to be just fine.." Dr. Brackett soothed as Dixie opened her eyes to blink up at him blearily.

"W-Where am I? Oh... my head.."

"Easy.. Just lie still." Kel suggested, and slowed down the flow rate of her Ringer's IV.

Mike Morton grinned, taking a blood pressure reading on his patient. "You're in Treatment Three. Pressure's up to 94 over 70, Kel."

Dixie was too muzzy to analyze much of anything. "What happened?"

"We found you in the elevator."

"How'd you find me in there?" She said through an annoyingly dry mouth from her nasal cannula.

"Security spotted you going down on the camera.  
Err,, rather, they didn't spot you passing out."

"What was I doing in there..?"

"I guess you were headed here from the fourth floor after you got hurt, judging from readout panel.  
But then further explosions caused the FD to use the emergency stops to control our supposedly panicky people flow and that unfortunately trapped you inside."

"The fourth fl-- Oh my G*d.. 405. Kel, I was up there trying to find John Gage and Megan Miller. Their room's facing the fire. I found their door blocked shut by fallen scaffolding!"

Dr. Brackett and Dr. Morton both grabbed her shoulders to keep her from rising. "They got out. An orderly who helped us with you told us so. Most likely they're outside in the lobby somewhere just hanging around, waiting for a check up."

"No they aren't.. Because I ..." Just as fast,  
memory eluded her. Dixie sighed, giving up trying to sit as she sank back onto the bed. "Because I'm certain that we---"

"Dixie, just hold on and think about the whole thing for a moment. Do you really have cause to worry about those two? Or is this moderate shock kicking in? The nurses at that desk say everything's 10-2 on that floor. Has been for at least twenty minutes."

"Well,, I still can't shake this feeling, not exactly.. It's just that...something's not ...right." she frowned in confusion.

"Dix, you just had minor surgery to repair that brachial artery. You lost over 1000cc's of blood. You're bound to feel a little off kilter."  
Mike Morton said with a grin and more than a little insistence.

"Mike, I know what I'm feeling now. Do me a favor. Just go up and check on them, ok? It'll only take a few minutes.."

Kel shook his head. "Wish I could spare the time,  
Dix. But the E.R.'s packed, and we're still deep in triage mode. I'm sure Johnny can take care of things by himself for a while. You know how fireman are. They're really really good at keeping on their feet. Now no protests, Mike and I have to get right back at it a.s.a.p. You were something of a priority case for us and that's the only reason why the both of us are here."

"Kel, Mike.. I.."

Mike looked up and said, "Are we gonna trust her to stay parked?"

"H*ll, no. So let's encourage her strongly, shall we?" And both doctors, to Dixie's chagrin, strapped the bed belts around her legs, waist and shoulders to guarantee compliance.

"Guys, you can trust me. How about if I promise to be a good patient and not go any---"

"Rest, Dix. And that's an order..." Brackett said,  
tempered by a smile. "At least until your IV bag finishes up. Then you can start to think about hobbling around to bark orders at the other nurses all you like.  
We're gonna need your bed space. Until then we're keeping you strapped in until that arm decides it's going to stay clotted up. When the chaos clears up a bit, we'll come back and do a neater job on those artery sutures."  
The two doctors stripped off their gloves they had donned for Dixie's repair job and hastened from the room into the triage filled bustle of the outer wards.

Dixie sighed, eyeing her arm splint and wrap job critically. "That's just great, you two." She took a deep breath from her oxygen and the elusive memory that had haunted her came flooding back.  
"Oh no.. Guys! Come back! I know what I saw in that back corridor now! Children's drawing pens don't lie around littering the floor for no good reason..!"  
she shouted.

Feeling weak, Dixie whispered to herself in defeat.  
"How can they when regular patients can't find a way into that restricted part of the hospital without help?"

A few minutes later, she set in again for someone to search the fourth floor loudly, but Dixie's words never reached any ears that really wanted to hear her out.

-  
"Mr. Gage! Now I know you can hear me. I've been telling you all my best riddles. And I'm getting tired of doing that to a quiet audience.. I--I DARE you to open your eyes and laugh at them. You have to remember them so you can tell Chet your friend when you get home,..ok..?

Mr. Gage..? Come on, wake up. My hands are getting tired holding this oxygen mask. It's so heavy and it's too big for you."

"Uh....hhhh." Johnny groaned and he coughed once when Megan accidently bumped a painful cut on his cheek with her elbow.

"That's it. That's it. I knew you could do it. Tell me.  
Tell me what I can do to get you better faster. I need you, Mr. Gage. I need you to get us out of here, now.." Megan pleaded, shaking his shoulder with both hands.

Gage pushed away the oxygen mask and rolled over onto his side, getting ill all over the floor.

Bravely, Megan didn't back away from the sounds.  
She just held his head on her lap. "It's ok, everybody gets upset stomach now and then. Mommy says that a little 7up always makes it better. I'll get you some when we get out of here."

Johnny's breathing rasped, frightening her,  
when he didn't speak again.

"Hey,.. are you ok?" Megan asked.

Huge wracking coughs kept Gage from talking right away.. Then he said softly.. "No,.. I... I'm not,  
Megan. I...must have gotten ....more toxins from the smoke ...than I had.....originally....planned on.  
Chest's...*choke*..filling up fast.."

"What can I do, Mr. Gage? Come on, tell me. There must be something I can do..." the little girl sobbed.

"I....I.. can't.....think.."

Megan's voice took on a quiet tone and she started talking, keeping the mask tightly over Johnny's face as he tried to pull himself together.  
"That's ok... I'm nine years old. I'll do the thinking for both of us.. I'm used to taking care of my younger brothers and you're only just a bigger kind of brother to me.... Only,...only.." Megan's face screwed up under her bandages and tears began to soak through, making them damp and pink.  
"..I don't know what to do now, Mr. Gage. I - I just keep right on hearing that awful low rumbling sound that came before that jetplane fell out of the sky. I'm scared Mr. Gage. I still am.. It sounded so much like something to be afraid of." she sobbed.

"D-don't ...be afraid.. I ..I ...*gasp* I...know what to do now. Megan...I...need you to find me a ...uh, a shot, ok.? You know, the kind with medicine in it.."

"What?" Megan said, brushing dirty hair out of Johnny's eyes. "I don't understand."

But Johnny didn't realize he was confusing the girl.  
He just blearily kept mumbling. "It's like your dad's coffee, only stronger..." he gasped, pushing the oxygen away... "It's called...a-atropine.... Go get the shot, Megan. Get it now. It's...it's..got to be nearby.. I just ..saw it."

"Where? Mr. Gage, I can't do that.. I can't see anymore."  
her lip trembled.

"It's ok, hon. Oh,...I see it right here, just out of reach about six feet to our right. Can you sweep around for it? Wait a minute, d- don't reach so far, you'll pull out your IV. Go slow.. A little farther.. There, feel it? It's like a plastic pack of silverware from the fast food restaurant. Yeah, that's it..." Johnny let his head fall back on Megan's lap and he closed his eyes, exhausted from the effort of picking up his head.. "Take it out of the paper and hand it here. You're gonna have to help me take it.."

"No,.. I can't do that.. I..hate shots.. Even watching them.." Megan protested.

Johnny gave a little laugh. "Well, we won't have that problem now, will we? Your eyes are wrapped up.."

"Oh, yeah. That's right. But I know it's gonna feel gross anyway.." she reasoned.

"Not that much for you to gross out with, now is there? You aren't going to be on the receiving end of it.." he coughed, trying to put a laugh into his tone. He failed to hide his weakness.

"Oh...h.." Megan quailed.

"Now,... I gotta take this in the hip. And I'm too beat to get my jeans loosened.  
You're gonna have to help me." Johnny said gasping.

"I'm not going to undress you!"

"Megan, you won't see anything.."  
he gasped in frustration.

"No, but I will know what's going on and that's bad enough.." she yelled right back,  
more angry than embarrassed.

"Ok,...ok...ok.. *choke* Change of plans.  
Calm down. I won't make you do anything you aren't willing to do. Geesh. Relax a little."  
Gage snaked out his hand until he grabbed a pair of clothes shears that had fallen from the crash cart when he fell against it. "Just let me... get my breath back ...it'll only take a bit.."

After some time taken to use the black O2 mask on high, Johnny spoke again.  
"Ok, here's the s-scoop. Can you cut away my jeans pocket on this side? Here's a pair of scissors I got...from the cart.."

"I don't want to cut you..!" Megan said vehemently.

"Megan, these are paramedic's scissors.  
Feel that? There's no sharp points on these,  
they're blunted with skin guards. Now.. go ahead. I...gotta....hurry....Getting h-hard to.  
breathe now..." And Johnny exaggerated his true condition by breathing noisily to get Megan over her qualms about ruining his jeans.

He eased off his acting when he felt cool air over his hip after much tugging and slicing on Megan's part. Soon the job was done.

Johnny began to realize that his respiratory distress wasn't all himself faking it. ::Edema? Too soon. Too:  
"M--Megan.. pull off the cover from the needle.. Now..push the plunger until you feel the medicine squirt out the top."

"Ooops sorry.."

"That's...o..ok.." Gage puffed. "I-I'll dry off soon enough when we get out of here.." Gage said.

The room started retreating again.

Johnny could feel his chemical burned bronchioles closing off despite of the O2 and suddenly another blackout threatened to swallow him up. ::I need the atropine.  
Now.. or I'll quit br--:: "Megan..feel where there's a padded spot on my hip and give me the s-shot where ..*gasp* you feel the skin isn't b-bony.."

"I can't do that!"

"Megan, I'm gonna faint on you ...right now... I can feeling it ....c-coming on.. Now.  
just do it. Come on, there's a good g---" Johnny's laboring lungs suddenly snuffed out his consciousness in mid sentence.

Megan felt Gage's hands fall away from hers and she heard the mask tumble off his face to the floor and his breathing suddenly quieted alarmingly. "Mr. Gage? Are you ok?.." she asked in horror. "Don't go to sleep.  
You gotta show me how to do this..."  
she whimpered.

Then something integral made Megan let go of the "child" way of thinking and a new budding "adult" side of her kicked in.

With only slightly shaking hands she stuck the needle firmly home and injected all the atropine in the syringe into Gage's hip muscle. Then she jerked it out and flung it away in absolute disgust.

Weeping, Megan Miller hugged Johnny Gage, listening to the rapid and weak wheezing noises coming from under the mask she had quickly returned to his face.

"Please don't die..." she whispered.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Johnny in jeans, no shirt and hurt, seated.  
Photo: Unconscious girl of nine, bleeding and bandaged.

Photo: Patients on beds crowding a hospital hallway

Photo: Morton treating a hurt Dixie on a gurney.  
Photo: Airplane crash field, up close.  
Photo: An animated syringe giving a shot to the air.

************************************************************* Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 16:43:28 -0800 (PST) From: "Sam Iam" Subject: A Glint In The Light An obnoxious squelch over the open frequency made Chet Kelly startle as he and Stoker climbed over the airplane debris field colorfully marked in fatality sheets.  
"J*sus H Christ... That's too loud!" he articulated as his hand shot into his turnout pocket to pull out his HT.  
His face was hot and streaming inside his air mask that he still wore. "Gonna be a scorcher today. Feels like 80 and the sun's just coming up."

"Could be because of all the fires, Chet. Relax. Feel like going for another air bottle change out yet?"  
Stoker asked, wiping a sooty glove over his faceplate so Kelly could see the glint in his eye that was an attempt to lift his spirits.  
Kelly stared at his radio accusingly as L.A. did its first communications check in with all the rescue and police personnel on scene of the jet crash. ##L.A. Stations:  
99, 36, 118, 12, 127, 8, 51, 10, Battalion 14, Ladder 90, Brush 5, One Adam Twelve, One Bravo Three,  
One Tango Six...#... the list droned on and on...

"Man, Stoker. I'd thought I'd never be on a response this big. I mean, how can they ever keep track of everybody? It's hard enough just keeping our own station's chatter on sub band 51."

Mike Stoker stopped in his tracks and turned a circle in place just like he'd been doing every twenty steps for the last two hours, looking for magnesium hot spots that might endanger their boot material. He eyed the signs of carnage and rubble alike with a professional dispassionate distance that Chet knew he'd never be able to master. "That's what the Fire Chiefs are for.  
L.A. can only ferry transmissions, not organize them all."

"I know, I know." Kelly said, hooking yet another piece of plane metal away from a tiny fuel blaze as they searched for their current assignment,  
looking for the flight recorder. "Maybe I'm just on edge because we haven't found a live victim.  
I really didn't need to see that rescue worker and his dog all busted up like that. It kinda gets a guy down. Know what I mean?"

Mike Stoker motioned that their way forward was clear of hazard without saying anything.  
He started counting out their twenty paces out loud once again as the lead man on the recovery team. His left foot stumbled on some baby clothes and he only hesitated briefly before walking on, using his hook as a support.

"Ah, man... I should have been a farmer.."  
Chet said softly as he regarded his crewmate's hunched over back. "This stuff's for the birds."

He hurried to catch up to Mike to give him an affectionate pat on the shoulder.

---------------------------------------------------------------

They were on the east side edge of the triage area outside a SafeKo store.

Roy DeSoto and Brice patted the back of the Mayfair after sealing off its access doors. "Go, go go!" the weary, ginger haired paramedic urged the driver as he stepped back away from the tires. Then he leaned over, catching his breath with his hands on his knees.

Brice whistled, getting Roy's attention.  
"Need this again?" he asked, lifting a demand valve mask from a coil wrap he had just finished making in their O2 case.

DeSoto shook his head, and waved him off with a gesture. "Nah... I'm fine..."  
and he parked his soiled backside on a spent foam unit casing to rest. He rubbed his face. "It's just... that last one really got to me. I mean, who'd figure a four year old boy going to his first day care center would ever end up on the receiving end of all of this..." he said, throwing up his hands at the chaos around them.

A sharp support volunteer quickly darted over from a supply tent and handed both paramedics plastic water bottles, already opened. They were luke warm.

Roy and Brice nodded their thanks mutely.

Craig rubbed the dirt off his face and made a half hearted attempt at rubbing some more off of his usually pristine uniform. "It doesn't pay to get emotionally involved with a patient while treating them."

Roy flared, "Does it look like I'm treating anybody right now, Brice?" he shouted, sharp. "No..."

Craig studied his feet and then just knelt and finished putting away the O2 apparatus. A long pause seemed to isolate the two men despite the roar of fire and echoing radio transmissions and hissing hoses and idleing engines surrounding them. But then, his face altered and opened up.  
"Sorry. There I go again, offering stupid advice where it isn't welcome."

Roy lifted his head and just shook it, brushing off the apology. "We're tired. We're all tired. And things really seem like they can just.....go on forever.."  
His eyes wandered over to ground zero where he could just see a crane trying to lift the tail section of the airliner away from an alley full of body parts. "Not your fault lashing out.." he said softly. "I just did it myself.." he said with an unconvincing familiar smile.

Brice's back just stayed stiff as he slowly stowed their gear back into the squad side compartments.

Roy got up and walked over to recollect his soggy coat from where it lay on the roof of the squad in a futile attempt to dry it off.  
"Come on, let's go grab some coffee. Dwyer said they have a refreshment tent already set up. Anything's gotta taste better than these things."  
he said draining the last of the water from his bottle. "We'll keep our talkies with us in case we get any more calls. I don't know about you,  
but I don't wanna be tied to the squad's radio for that. I wanna move around a little."

Craig finally grinned and looked at Roy.  
"Same here. I thought I was the only one getting ansy."

"Not by a long shot.." DeSoto smirked.

But then Craig's face fell into another disturbed frown that DeSoto noticed.

"What's wrong?" he asked Brice.

"I....can't put my finger on it. But have you been listening to all the radio checks? There's not one voice going on the air that I recognize.." he told Roy.

Roy tipped his head, thinking a bit.  
"Well, there are a lot of us here.."

"Yeah, perhaps you're right. But I can't shake the willies I've had ever since we both got here."

"Body recovery blues?" DeSoto asked.

"No..no.." Craig said carefully. "It's different.."

"Well, a little sugar might help. We're both a little transparent right now. Not hungry, but hollow. And we still have to do our vitals sets on each other looking for hidden trouble spots because of all the complex smoke around here."

"We'll do that after the break." Craig nodded in decision.

Roy shrugged back into his damp jacket.  
"Ok.." he grinned. "Let's go."

-  
Chet Kelly passed by mountains of steaming rubble, house and plane and nothing he saw was familiar. "We've been all over the place, Stoker. I don't think we're gonna find it. Maybe we should let the Feddies.."

"We haven't been on this side yet, Chet.  
I know, I would have remembered passing that.." he said, pointing down to a charred car that had a severed fire hose lying by it.

Kelly leaned in a little closer. "What happened here?"

"Hose burst. The crew manning it must have touched a mag fire."

"Oooo." Chet winced in sympathy, peering into the windows of the car. "Looks like they got out a live one. There's IV and EKG papers all over the place. And I'm seeing a used suction cylinder in here. "

Mike hooted. "Whoo Hooo! There's one LESS for ya, Grim Reaper! " and he celebrated by raising his fire hook in triumph.

Chet raised his eyebrows in silence before mumbling, "Always gotta watch out for the quiet types, man.." but he smiled just a few seconds later.

Unfamiliarity reigned across the landscape on the ground with nothing recognizable, but all the fire and smoke was all too familiar to them as they resumed search.

One section to the west under a rising column of an as yet unbattled fuel fire caught Chet's attention. A shape sticking out of the mess that bothered him. "Hey, Stoker. This way."

"Kelly, we'll mess up our pattern.."

"Just come on.. I may have spotted something."

Mike Stoker followed line of sight along Chet's arm. Then he shrugged. "A firefighter. So.."

"Stoker, think a minute.. Do you see a truck around here anywhere. No one leaves the hundred foot perimeter from the engine in an unknown hazard scene."

Stoker once again eyed the figure picking its way over the debris field, shimmering in the early morning heat thermals. Its helmet almost seemed to big. "Looter?"

"I'll bet fifty bucks on it.." Kelly complained.

"Now, I'm really mad...." Stoker frowned.  
The mild expression on his face hadn't changed.

"Good, glad it's unanimous. Shall we do a little city property recovery mission?  
Not like we're really needed victim scouting and I'm fed up with trying to locate a needle in a haystack with that flight box." Kelly sighed.

"I'm in.."

------------------------------------------

Three minutes later, Kelly and Stoker closed in their ambush on the lanky teen who was saundering around the crash zone in stolen fireman's gear. He looked almost comical with his bloody white Adidas shoes sticking out of the tan pants.

"Got ya!" Stoker said, using the severed fire hose as a lasso.

Chet brandished both fire hooks like medieval lances and he framed the startled young man with them keeping him from running into one of the live powerlines twitching on the ground. "Stupid kid. Start stripping, right now!  
And be fast about it."

"Ok, ok, What's the big deal? I was just having a little fun ya know? My friends couldn't get anywhere near here because they didn't have the right threads.." the teen sputtered, giving up and hastily peeling off the contraband.

"Where'd you get it?" Kelly demanded.

"I don't know.. Somewhere back there.  
Near the nose cone. Nobody was watching it. These things were just lying on the ground...."

That disturbed both of 51's firefighters into muteness, briefly.

Mike Stoker freed the boy from his restraints.  
"Now listen carefully, your life may depend on it."

"Sir?"

Kelly threw down one of the hooks until it connected with a hidden power line and livid gold and blue sparks crackled and roared to life around it until the energy kicked the metal end of it away.

The teen flinched and paled considerably.

"See that? This whole place is littered with live electrical lines and fuel puddles just waiting for some dumb kid to come along and fry himself to death just for stepping in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kapesh?" Stoker snarled.

The kid rapidly grew terrified. "Uh, huh..uh h-..uh."  
he nodded quickly. "I can see that...." he squeaked.

"Now get out of here.. Follow along on top of that dead fire hose to the uneffected streets pronto. And don't come back..... And I do mean ON TOP.  
You just may make it out of here alive..." Mike said softly.

The kid fled.

"Oo, man... Stoker,.." Chet laughed once the cowed teenager had gone considerable distance away from them. "Remind me to never be reborn as one of your kids, ok? You make the wrath of G*d Moses felt seem t--"

But Stoker was no longer listening. He had lifted the jacket from the ground and was wiping the soot over the letters on the back of it, away, with a wet passenger sweater.

Simultaneously, the rising sun's light touched the curving mass of a severed chunk of the airplane and glinted off twisted metal of red and silver chrome, something not found on any aircraft.

Kelly gaped. "Ohmyg*d.."

Stoker's HT flew to his mouth and he thumbed the talk button over the steady radio traffic buzzing from the speaker.  
"Break! Break! Break! HT 51 to Battalion 14.  
Unit down. I repeat. Unit down. We've just found a fire engine under the nose cone.  
ID is Station 10!"

Photo : Crash debris field..

Photo : The severed nose of a downed 747.

Photo: A mangled fire engine in early dawn.

*  
From : Cory Anda Sent : Friday, March 12, 2004 1:29 AM Subject : High Rescue

Megan stirred from where she lay across Johnny Gage's chest. His hand had gripped the base of her throat, feeling for the big pulse point that she knew she had there. "Mr. Gage? Are you all right?" she asked lifting her bandaged head and eyes from the fast rise and fall of his breathing.

A grunt of pain from a dry throat greeted her ears.

"Mr. Gage? Did you hear me?"

Finally, she got a croak in response. "*cough* I... was just....about to ask you the same thing, Megan." said his voice, muffled by the black rubber surgical oxygen mask Megan had strapped onto his face. "Are we still safe in here? I ..kinda l-lost track of time." he moaned, sliding the flowing mask off his mouth to his chin so that she could better understand him.

"Sure are. I've been crawling to the door every five minutes to check it for hot spots or smoke coming from the bottom of the door."

Johnny opened his eyes blearily and blinked away lingering grogginess that still fogged him from his exposure to the chemical smoke from the patient room Megan and he had escaped from.

Experimentally, he took in a deep breath. Immediately, bubbling liquid made him choke in reflex but the spasms that had plagued him before the atropine injection didn't rematerialize. "Good job with giving me that shot Megan. I- I think I've turned the corner."

Gage saw Megan's hands blindly grope around on his stomach until they located both of his caked palms in a tiny and sweaty grip. "I was so worried Mr. Gage. I- I thought your lungs were going to stop getting enough air for you. It was scary hearing those noises. They were all whistles and squeaks and you got really sweaty and cold, too, for a long time. I tried to cover you up but I couldn't find a blanket."

Johnny glanced with irony at the shelves of surgical sheeting that were folded on the linen racks just above Megan's eye wrapped head's height. "That's ok. I... feel better now. You've nursed me through just fine here." and he leaned over to cough and spit some thick mucous out of his mouth. "How'd ya.. how'd ya keep track of when to recheck the door again for fire and smoke with your eyes wrapped up like they are?" he asked, shifting slowly to hands and knees, testing his body's strength and condition to see if he could manage standing.

Right then, Gage's watch went off and he startled as its shrill, trebled diving alarm pierced the stillness of the store room.

Megan's bandaged face split into a toothy smile. "I recognized your watch, Mr. Gage. My dad's got one just like it and I knew which button to hit to set the timer for a five minute low air interval warning."

"Oh yeah? Those are mighty big words for a nine year old." Gage scoffed, teasing her. He threw partially focusing eyes downwards to make sure that Megan had indeed pulled out the syringe needle from his hip before he turned off the alarm buzzing on the watch. "Don't know if I believe you." he said with a grin, not being able to help himself. He wanted to make her think of something else other than him to bolster her own confidence, mentally and physically.

"Oh yeah? Well I can tell you that I checked that door five times since you decided to nap on me. And yes, I've been told I've got a mighty big brain for school learning, especially when I write and talk about all of daddy's diving trips to the Bahamas." Megan said with indignation. "You better believe me cause it's what happened. You were out for all that time."

Gage reached out with come here hands. "Hey..I'm just kidding. I forgot you can't see the smile on my face. Really,.. I'd have you on my engine crew watching over my rear in a house fire any day of the week, Megan. You really saved my bacon a half hour ago and I'm not going to forget it anytime soon. Come here. A grateful guy wants to dish out a hug or two in thanks, all right?"

Megan rushed into Johnny's arms as he stood up on shaky legs. "There..." he said. "I'm all right and so are you, hon. No need for tears. Now. Let's get the heck out of here like we both wanna do." he complained.

He set her briefly on the stack of boxes as he turned off the oxygen tank they had both used and he checked both their vitals signs to reassure paramedic curiosity about himself and his young charge's status.

She was stable and her eye dressings were no longer wet with new oozing plasma under the older dried blood stains covering her eyes. His own B/P was in the hundred range palpated but all the cuts on his bare chest and shoulders and the areas above his jeans and on his face had clotted up well.

As an afterthought, Gage grabbed a new D5W bag to replace Megan's limp one along with another atropine syringe package for himself in case his toxic gas pulmonary edema flared into crisis again. "Ready to go, princess?" he asked her when he was through fussing.

"And how. People out there are probably wondering where we are."

::I'm counting on it.:: Johnny thought to himself as he hefted Megan's light weight onto his good hip.

He grabbed a fire extinguisher from a wall compartment on his way out of the surgical supply room after deciding he'd keep the route ahead hazard free with it as a backup.

"What's that for?" Megan asked when she recognized the familiar ching of metal nozzle on metal cylinder.

Gage said. "Ever heard of an insurance policy? Well, this is a non paper kind. Hang on to me tight. We're headed out." Johnny felt Megan clench his hair painfully as he moved down the fitfully lit hallway and back into a faint bank of bitter sweet smelling smoke. "You're forgetting the Santa Anas are in full swing. They'll wrap any fire higher than a skyscraper if the wind's strong enough. There may be hot spots around where we're going."

An orange glow at the end of the corridor showed Johnny the location of the glass elevator. The doors separating its shaft from the maintenance corridor had been ripped away and the nightmare vision of the burning plane and surrounding neighborhood gaped through like a surrealistic hellish painting that made a lump knot deep in his throat.

Gage didn't let the relaxed but mute Megan know that his eyes and heart were already crying. ::All of them, dead?:: he thought in thinly veiled despair and shock. He could tell by the color of the smoke columns that more than metal and wood burned in the magnesium fires that marked a sickening outline where the plane had embedded its length into the parking lot concrete and across the yards of at least six homes that he could see in the distance from his vantage point from the fourth floor of Rampart.

The scene was hugely bloated with chaotic ruin that hungrily swallowed all signs of the rescue work that was ongoing, for there wasn't even the slightest sound of radio barks nor the faintest flash of red lights from fire engines carrying up to where Gage and Megan slumped in the passageway.

A hot wind whipped a vile stench up the shattered shell of the glass tube that once housed the glass viewing elevator panes. Rungs of metal where the broken sheets of tempered glass were once hung, were completely intact. "Those are still climbable!" Johnny said, looking down, tracing the route his eyes picked out through the darkness and firelight flickers. "We can rappel down."

"But we're so high up.." Megan wailed.

Gage shouted, seeing hospital figures below running triage in the hastily converted outdoor cafeteria just below him. "Hey! Up here!" But no one looked up towards the upper floors at all and the roar of fire and water covered the sound.

Then Johnny spotted a familiar shape sniffing and searching through the rubble and papers littering the grass. "Boot! Hiya boy!.. Up here! We need help!"

But the shaggy, weary dog didn't hear him.

Desperate, Johnny said, "Megan, gimme more of your coloring pens. Quick."

The girl unzipped her fanny pack and gave him the last of them. The green ones. "Here." she sobbed in sudden fear, understanding the tactic at once.

One by one, Johnny launched pens into the air, trying to hit the ground near Boot. Several bounced off the torn, tipped over umbrellas out of the dog's sensory range.

But the very last green pen finally clattered right underneath Boot's front paws. The stressed dog startled at the impact but immediately afterwards, his nose started working earnestly until he located the thrown missile as it rolled under a canted over cafeteria tree pot.

Boot whined when he recognized Johnny's scent mixed with blood on the pen.

"Atta boy! It's us.. Good boy.." Gage grinned. "Get a good whiff. Yeah, that's me and yeah, I'm in trouble."

Johnny could just barely see Boot begin a tracking circle around the bustling gurneys and moaning patients crowding the triage area in a concerted search for his whereabouts. His pacing was headed away from the ravaged side of the hospital.

"No, no.. we're up here, Boot!" and he waved sharply, leaning over the edge of the windy precipice inside of the elevator shaft. "Come on.. Use that mug of yours. And those ears...!" He brought a bloody hand up to his lips and he whistled fiercely.

Boot's head jerked at the sound that only he could hear over the crash site's din and his head lifted, trying to pinpoint the source of echo of the familiar call that he knew.

Gage whistled again and he saw Boot's black nose twitch in a rush of wind that swept down the side of Rampart's shattered face from where Megan and he huddled against the fire and sun glowing building.

Then the two of them connected eyes.

Johnny saw but didn't hear Boot begin to bark and fuss in earnest in sudden frantic activity. "Atta boy. Go get help! Yeah, we're up here boy. Gonna need a way down. Go, boy. Go! Get some help. Yeah, I got a victim with me and I know how much you can't stand not being able to reach one."

With a last emotionally torn howl, Boot arrowed off to the west, shooting around doctors' legs and oblivious civilian casualties in search of some true fire people from an engine crew who would do more than just kick him away in irritation.

"Go.. Boot.. get Cap or.. anybody.. That's the way.." he gasped, sinking down to crouch on the edge of the cold concrete above the elevator track, cradling a mentally shocked Megan against his shoulder. He laid the child on the floor onto her left side and covered her with a stack of plastic bags from an abandoned mop cart to help keep her warm in the smoke breezy hallway. Deftly, he hung her IV on a door jam above her. "Megan, stay put. I gotta rig a line of some kind for us to use."

Gage crawled over to the far wall and yanked open the emergency fire hose panel and peeled its long but empty canvas'ed length away from its hanging hooks.

Absently, his trembling hands began to fashion a safety harness using the fire hose; a tandem one big enough to hold both Megan and himself. "If they're not here in ten minutes, we're getting down ourselves. Can't wait long for treatment. Neither one of us. That O2 we shared off the tank was just a stop gag measure. This new smoke's gonna effect us being still caught up this high if we don't get underneath the worst of it real soon."

When Johnny was through with his constructing, he tied the male end of the hose to the big red water nozzle wheel coming from the stout red painted pipe inside the panel cabinet. He quickly secured a firm hauling hitch.

Then, he gently awoke Megan, murmuring reassurances. "Set to go? It's ok. I won't let you fall. I do these kinds of things all the time in all kinds of places and I've never dropped anyone from a high place without a reason."

Megan scoffed, making a face. "What's a good reason?"

"Uh,... When we had to use a life net." he said through pursed lips.

His answer didn't alarm her in the slightest. "Why don't you get one of those now, Mr. Gage?"

Johnny's hesitation was a long one. But truth won out. "Because no one knows yet that we're even up here. Except Boot."

"Boot who?" Megan coughed weakily.

"Our station's dog. He's a sort of mascot who's our pet,.. er.. well, ..he's actually a stray who shows up on occasion right when we need him."

"Like now?"

Gage felt his young charge begin to shiver as he tied the final hose loop around both himself and her. He eyed the hazardous way down the side of the building inside the shattered, dangerous glass elevator shaft. The car itself was at the bottom, unused, parked and forgotten in a safety measure. "I sure hope so. I gave him strong enough hints about where we were thanks to your bunch of coloring pens. I tossed them down practically on Boot's head."

"I'm gonna miss them." Megan sighed, suddenly sleepy. "Especially my green ones. And my brother and my d--" her voice trailed off.

Johnny was alarmed, quickly. "Hey,..Megan? Can you hear me? " he asked her, leaning close and feeling the waning strength of the pulse at her carotid. "Now don't go out on me here. I need you to--" he broke off when he felt the girl go limp despite of his shouting and pain rubs.

A closer check proved the child still breathed but it was shallow and fast because of the increasingly acrid air swirling around them. Gage half considered retreating back to the surgical store room but changed his mind, thinking suddenly of Boot. ::He's gonna need something to go point onto when he gets back with some half convinced doubting firefighter. It's gonna be a needle in a haystack for him to find someone I know who'll believe him that there's trouble involving me, so I gotta make it as easy for him as possible to prove... by staying visible..:: he thought.

Johnny snagged Megan's IV free from the door hook and turned its port wide open, tucking the bag and tubing inside of her fanny pack which still hung above the level of her loosely dangling arm. He tested her consciousness level and found it at an even lower glasgow rating of three. "Oh, no you don't."

Gage fished the oral airway he had saved in his back pocket that Megan had needed earlier and reinserted it over her tongue carefully. "You're gonna keep moving air." he sighed.

A minute later, he was breathing hard with the effort of easing himself and Megan over the side of the window ledge and into the shattered frame of the elevator shaft. He scrambled his way down into the clearer air at the third story, and then a bit farther down to the fullest extent and reach of his jury rigged hose and there, they hung unseen by the overtaxed hospital workers milling about underneath their feet. "Boot ... I sure hope you got the message. There's no turning back for us." and he eyed the fourth floor where he had just left as another thick bank of smoke and fuel fumes obscured the doorway they had exited. "I don't think I can get back up there if my life depended on it."

To Johnny's dismay, a huge choking smoke cloud swirled down Rampart's flank to meet them and completely covered them up from view from any potential spotters on the ground.

Gage felt himself getting fuzzy once again as the hot brightening dawn wind around them suddenly grew too poisoned to breathe.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Johnny caring for an unconscious girl.

Photo: A shattered high rise surrounded by overturned cars.

Photo: A shirtless Gage next to an outside glass elevator at night in smoke looking down four stories.

Photo: Boot barking hysterically.

Photo: A wall housed fire hose cabinet setup in closeup.

*  
From: Katherine Bird .uk Date: Sat Mar 13, 2004 8:11 pm Subject: Mascot Mayhem..

Mike Stoker's radio sprang to life with animated voice. ##10-9 last transmission#  
came at least three lieutenants who were supporting shotgun as battalion relay backups.  
Static and warbles spat from both the 51 firefighters'  
HT's but nothing else that was legible got through as command voice after command voice walked on each other trying to be the first to deal with Chet and Stoker's emergency.

The warbles became an unmistakable tangle.  
Mike clicked his talk button in a test but nothing happened at all when the wind suddenly changed, shifting the debris and plane parts piled up on top of the fire truck.

"D*mn. We're in a blackout area?! Must be because the engine repeater's been damaged.." Stoker guessed. He quickly cased the ground for danger as he picked his way over fallout to reach the crushed Crown where he saw her.

Chet pushed his helmet up in frustration on his head and he ripped off his air mask to shout to anyone from the luckless station who might be lying hurt and trapped in the immediate area. "Hey!.. All in ten's! Yell if you can hear me, man.. We see your engine!!" he gasped, accepting Mike's hand to haul him over a section of plane skin in between two small mag fires.

Only the sound of fire and scorching wind hissed by their ears. The lack of human voices replying spurred Kelly and Stoker into an even more frantic search for 10's possible fallen.

Kelly resealed his SCBA mask over his lips but it didn't conceal the anger on his face while the telecommunications on his HT's band fell apart when just about every firefighter at the crash site crowded onto the channel, demanding more information about the Unit Down call.

Finally, L.A. broke through with a tones squelch, silencing the clamouring talkers crowding the line. ##All units, radio silence... All units, radio silence.. Battalion 12, go ahead. Your channel and HT 51's has been put on a signal boosted protected band.. Go..##

Numbly, Kelly clutched the fireman's turnout he still had in his hands and he mumbled.. "This is Bob's.." he said,  
his gloves twitching shakily over the grime and blood on the jacket. Soot smeared Bellingham's name. "That stupid kid got it away from him somehow...." he whispered in shock.  
"Oh Stoker, I'm afraid this is gonna be the thing that freaks out the walking rule book.. Brice is gonna sh-"

"Quiet, Chet. I'm on.."  
Mike Stoker's voice held no hint of the fear that was sweeping across his face. His baritone stayed firm and controlled as he spoke rapidly. "Battalion 12. Engine Ten is clearly impact crush damaged. We are located at the nose cone end of the airliner. There was a looter with one of ten's turnouts and that's how we found the pumper. Also sir, as yet, there's no sign of the jacket's ...uh,...owner or the other firefighters.."

##Scene safety?## came the deep stonorous voice of the assistant chief who was Battalion 14's right hand.

"Minor mag fires, live lines down 18 meters south. There's a lot of fuel fumes over here blowing downwind of the tail section. Air bottles are going to be critical for those moving in." Kelly added.

##Understood. I'm putting your situation on priority. Inform me the second you find anybody. I have Squad 51 and Station 8 responding..##

"10-4.." Mike replied, flinging aside the cumbersome HT onto a multilated Samsonite luggage case. He fire hooked tangles of framework away from Engine Ten's back grill,  
the only part they could see.

Kelly shouted.. "Hold it! Hold it Hold it!! Power line!" he warned. Stoker froze, while Kelly threw Bellingham's jacket over the sparking electrical cable Mike had uncovered. "O.K., it can't writhe free now. Go ahead!"

Stoker got to the engine and climbed into the first hole he saw, shouting as he went as loud as he could. "Hey!  
Can anybody hear me?! It's 51's!!"

Kelly quickly joined him in the dark space Stoker had jammed himself into. Finally, he reached the cab's back window and he rubbed it clean with a sleeve, crushing his nose against the spidered glass so that he could peer inside.. "She's empty!!" he said joyfully. "They either got out or they weren't here when the plane hit..." he sighed through his sweaty mask.. "My G*d. Battalion 14 must be out of his mind about this, Stoker. No one put two and two together that the jet crashed where he told 10's to station keep!"

"Who could have?" Mike grunted as he pushed himself back out the way he had come carefully retracing their route off the roof of the devastated Crown. "There's over twenty County and City units here... It's nobody's fault. Just really sh*tty bad luck.."

"I know.. I know.. " Kelly said, accepting Mike's soggy glove for balance as he, too, got down off the engine to resume their victim search. "But my head hurts anyway. And there's a poker jammed through my chest that's nothing physical,  
about all this."

"Me, too...*gasp* Just keep looking.." Mike said. "They gotta be around here somewhere.."

"Who says? They're probably scouting the houses like we were doing earlier." Kelly said, finding something to ease his barely contained fear for their fellow station mates.

"But how do you explain Bellingham being out of his turnout?" Stoker frowned grimly. "He might be one who's still around here somewhere.."

Chet and Stoker finally stumbled to the front of the buried engine, their eyes confirming that no firefighters lay as casualties near the big truck.  
"Man,.. I wish we could've rung it out of that kid's neck about where he found the jacket.. Bob would never take it off if he was healthy.."

"It could've caught fire..." Stoker theorized. "You know how insidious magnesium burns are. Or he could've used it to cover a live victim to stave off shock but then forgot about it when the stokes recovery teams moved in."

"Always nice and positive, Stoker. That's what I like so much, about you. But my instincts are screaming,  
man. Don't you feel yours? Something's wrong. And it's about one of us..." Kelly insisted, pale and small in his fire gear, as they began once more, their hazard scene search pattern's hunt for anything human in the debris piles. "I just can't shake it either."

Mike Stoker didn't say anything. He froze a minute later when he spotted something embedded in the twisted heart of the violated Crown pumper. Chet followed line of sight down Mike's arm.. "I don't believe it.."

"Yeah? Well, call it in and don't touch it. The feddies will nail our *sses if we disturb anything near it." Stoker grunted. "F*ck, why do we find this and not Bellingham??"

Chet was impressed with Mike's usually hidden trucker mouth as he lifted the HT to his faceplate. "L.A. and Batallion 12. No sign yet but we have located the flight recorder. Looks like Engine Ten's hood was the bullseye."

##Copy that.## Battalion 12 answered. ##Check in at minute intervals.##

A sterner, foreign voice took over the line. "HT 51.  
Touch nothing while you're in there. Our people are intercepting you now for its recovery.."

Kelly's eyebrows climbed into his hairline.  
"You were speaking of the Feds?" Chet said sarcastically.  
"My, aren't they speedy.." he growled. "I hope they all step on a power l--"

"Chet, they're our tax dollars, hard at work.." Stoker teased, trying to lighten the increasing knot of dread that he was experiencing as Chet's non-ignorable bad feeling took root in his stomach. "It behooves us to let them... officiate.." he articulated for lack of a better word.

"Why don't they concentrate on developing better airport transportation vehicle protocols or something else that's useful, huh? Hindsight investigation does precious little to help the folks we're seeing smeared all over the county. I'm almost half tempted to hook that power line we just found onto the red box just to fry it so the truth about this crash's human/plane maintenance shortcomings will never hit the media! You heard how those compensators were straining when she flew over our heads. The victims' relatives deserve better than a sterile statement of apology six months from now from the FAA, you know.." Unconsciously, his eyes fell on a very familiar place inside of Engine Ten.

Mike Stoker took Kelly's trembling arm and led him away from the cab seat that was the twin of the one Kelly usually took when on a call on Engine 51.  
He noticed that it had been shredded by myriads of metal shards the length of his arm, some of which were still impaling the leather sickeningly. ::That could have been us, in E 51..:: he realized. ::Someone's watching out for somebody today, that's for sure.:: he thought and he crossed himself, as Roy would've done. "Come on,.. we'll try and go back to where we intercepted that teenager. Won't be hard to find his footsteps in all this soot and blood to trace a trail back to where the jacket might have come from. If Bob's still in trouble, chances are better that he'll be closer to there than here.. agreed?"

Kelly nodded tightly, fighting his emotions as he let Mike lead the way. "Glad at least one of us is thinking clearly.."

"Let's go.." Mike said gently.

As they passed back by the engine, Stoker paused only long enough to spray paint her side with the bright symbol for no bodies found for the other workers, who were bound to come there anyway they could, just to ease their own minds about her current status and situation.

The two of them all but ran back to the depressing open area where they had found the looter.

It took them four minutes to find Bob Bellingham's length stretched out in a puddle of fuel face down,  
eight meters from where they had corralled the teen with the severed hose.

Chet and Mike carefully rolled him over onto his back and Chet dug into Bob's shirt for a carotid. "Still got one." he grinned. "Looks like his air mask kept him from drowning in the stuff."

Bob groaned when Mike placed his gloves under his head to keep his spine still and straight. "Well, that explains a few things. He's got a goose egg the size of a grapefruit back here."

"That lousy fink!" Chet exploded, turning his masked face towards the neighborhood where the rebel teen had long since departed. "What kind of kid would mug a firefighter just to get some gear to put on to go body gawk?"

"A thrill seeker from a broken home?" Stoker ventured.

Chet made a face. Then he turned his attention back to Bellingham when the man's air-tank-is-empty whistle began to sound. He pulled off Bob's mask and replaced it with his own. "Brilliant Sherlock Holmes.. That's a brownie point for you. This one's his now, Stoker." he said, tapping the face plate he held pressed over Bob's nose and mouth around the jaw thrust he was maintaining on the mostly out paramedic. "Gimme yours so I can buddy breathe in peace and quiet ok? We'll trade off every two breaths like the usual. Do me a favor huh? Keep theorizing this crime scene to yourself. I'm so mad at that kid right now, I just might curse him with that hex Marco's mom once taught me that Lopez says always seems to work for her." he cocked his geared head in another thought. "Or I just might give the other Station Ten guys his description when we find them and let THEM deal out a little justice before the cops come."

Smiling and rationing his breath, Stoker lifted his HT to report that a Station Ten man had been found alive.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Brice! ... no.." Roy said firmly, grabbing Craig's arm.

They had both just heard Mike Stoker's report on finding Bob Bellingham injured soon after the stunning shock of news announcing Engine Ten's demise.

Now, the straight laced, usually bureaucratic eye glassed paramedic was anything but reserved. He almost shook free of DeSoto's hold on him ; the only thing which kept Brice from running off into the debris field to get to Bellingham's side. "Roy, Kelly and Stoker aren't paramedics. They don't know the first thing about secondarily surveying a patient! Getting that right is critical! "

"True, but they DO know the primary one. You remember.  
the one about the A B C's..?" Roy grinned. "Bob's in good enough hands until Squad 8 gets there. They did say they had breathing, a regular pulse and that Bob was reactive to pain. He'll get through just fine without you going barging in there and taking over.." he said necessarily sharp.

"How would you feel if it was YOUR partner lying there as a victim?" Craig said, not caring how he sounded to the civilian volunteers milling about them. "I'm sure if the tables were turned and you were in MY shoes, that you'd try to expedite a rescue as quickly as possible yourself, just like what you're accusing me of doing right now. Listen to your radio DeSoto.. Hear all that chatter?  
That's the sound of three dozen other firefighters who feel exactly the same way I do right now. "

Roy led Craig out of the food tent by the elbow to stand near the squad. "Craig.. Craig.. " he interjected between Brice's long drawn out speech. "Craig.. I- I understand. But this is triage. We go where they tell us and not a moment before. I heard Battalion 12 say he was planning on sending us out. So all we have to do is sit tight and wait for the word go.. all right?"

Right then came a harried rookie from the city in dusty yellow with an air bottle strapped on the wrong way. At his feet was Boot, barking loudly.

"Hey, 51.." said the young rookie. "This your dog? Listen, you'd better take charge of him cause my captain's had it up to here with him grabbing all our pant legs for no good reason.  
He's really pissing the guys off. Broderick almost blasted him with the engine cannon to clear him outta our space..."

"What?" Roy said, taking charge of Boot's collar.  
The ragged dog was whining and carrying on.  
And he was breathing oddly, like he was choking.

The rookie just threw up his hands and walked away mumbling. "Just keep him away from us,  
Truck 226, and you'll have no problems. If he comes back and becomes the main course on the chow line, don't come looking for me..."

Craig had already crouched down by Boot's side.  
"His name's Boot?" he asked Roy, grabbing the dog by the head and pulling his chin up to see the cause of Boot's physical distress.

DeSoto nodded.

Brice pulled a green ink pen out of Boot's mouth briefly before the dog fiercely retook possession of it, only to resume his whining and pacing before the two paramedics with even more urgency. "I don't know dogs, DeSoto. But he's obviously stressed, maybe because of all the fatalities around here."

Roy also stooped and petted Boot's back to calm him but it didn't work. "He's really worked up about something. What was that you got out of his mouth?"

Brice suffered a brief tug of war with Boot but finally yanked the ink pen out of the mutt's maw and he held it up before the leaping canine snatched it away again.  
"Just an ink pen.. how strange.. There's thousands of better kinds of sticks lying around. Why did he choose that to play with?" Craig wondered.

Roy got a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach.  
"He doesn't play, and when he's onto something like this, it's because he's tracking someone."

"What?"

"Boot's done this before. When he first started hanging around the station, on our first call, he actually found a hiker's backpack along the roadside. Without him, we wouldn't've ever found the victim. He was eighty feet down a beach cliff following a fall..." Roy said absently.

Boot suddenly pushed the pen into DeSoto's hand and then began to tug his pants leg in earnest, almost to the point of tipping him over. His whines and frantic barks continued even more loudly.

Craig said. "What now? We can't keep him in the squad.  
It's too hot.." Then he scratched his head. "I know, I'll tie him up to the running board with a tow line.." And he finished carrying out his idea.

"Let him go.." Roy said, feeling something dreadful.

The pen that he held up into the rising sunlight was full of blood stains.

Craig shrugged and then cut the rope in two with his belt pocket knife.

Boot took off towards Rampart like a shot, but only along a route that the squad could follow.

DeSoto grew certain.. "He's onto someone who's in trouble, someone no one else knows about.. Get in. We'll follow him.."

Brice said, "DeSoto, this is highly illog--"

DeSoto slammed the driver's door after stepping into the squad and securing his helmet. "Maybe. But we have no reason to go anywhere else until we're formally authorized. Buckle up.."

Soon, Roy pulled up in a clear spot alongside the outdoor cafeteria out of the way of the line of ambulances and supply tents and the morgue area.

Boot hastily ran into the cafeteria's courtyard.

"Oh, boy.." Roy said. "The doctors in there aren't gonna like that.."

But Craig and he got out of the squad, complete with their air bottles on anyway, to find out where Boot was headed.

Roy hesitantly stopped at the barrier sealed off entrance and waved a sweating doctor over to his side.

The M.D. said, "What can I do for you, paramedic....."  
and he fished for a name, peering at Roy's sooty name plate.

"DeSoto.. " Brice supplied when Roy wasn't fast enough.

Roy exchanged looks with Craig in gratitude. "Doc, this will only take a second. uh,,, H-Have you seen a dog in here?"

The blond haired man tossed his head over his left shoulder. "Oh, you mean that one?"

Roy and Craig glanced over to a section of grass along the brick wall that bordered the eatery. A bloody collie lay stretched and silent in death near a garbage can.

The doc went on. "She came in here about two hours ago looking for her owner most likely. Died of her injuries before she found anyone.."

Roy blinked..."Uh,, this one's living... about two feet high, shaggy brown.."

A commotion near the center of the triage section drew all of their eyes.

Boot was scrambling on top of a table hastily stacked with emergency supplies and then, impossibly, he leaped up onto an adjacent umbrella, still stretched upright and shading patients lying beneath it.

"Hey!!" snapped the doctor. "Get down! Now!" he yelled, fearing that Boot would slip off and land on the stokes victims underneath the umbrella.

"Oh my G*d.." DeSoto blurted and he and Craig rushed forward to drag Boot off his precarious perch.

As they were reaching, they saw where Boot was staring and barking....up the side of Rampart.

"Johnny!!!!??" DeSoto cried out.

Brice's HT was in his hand in seconds and he was talking before Roy drew another breath.  
"L.A. , we have a man trapped outside the fourth floor above the triage area. Also a child. Both are unconscious and in heavy smoke.. Squad 51 is at scene.."

Roy and Brice barely heard the Battalion Chiefs'  
reply nor the unit L.A. was dispatching to aid them.

DeSoto started running for the doors of the hospital when he felt a sharp jolt as strong hands stopped him.

"Roy,.. what did you just inform me about five minutes ago?  
I suggest strongly that we stay put." Brice said evenly.

DeSoto let out a sigh of exasperation, but finally just joined Boot into staring up skyward, looking for signs of life in the two still forms dangling from a tied off fire hose, above him.

The doctor couldn't tell what was louder, Boot's frantic barks or Roy DeSoto's urgent yells to the man that they had discovered in jeopardy. All he knew was that in a few minutes, he'd have two more victims on his roster to worry about.

-  
Photo : A red flight recorder nestled in a niche.

Photo : Battalion 12 on a phone.

Photo: Brice looking frantic with messy hair.

*  
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:29:43 -0800 (PST) From: "Sam Iam" Subject: Aftermath

Brice tapped Roy DeSoto on the shoulder to get around the hindering sound dampening SCBA tank the paramedic had on. "DeSoto.. Gage's line,  
such that it is, looks secure. Let's go meet the bucket at the entrance and start clearing a path through the gawkers for the truck to get in here." he shouted.

Roy, grabbing Boot and praising him ecstatically, nodded his masked head vigorously. "Ok. Sounds like a plan." he said, aiming a powerful flashlight a quick thinking intern had handed him from a supply cart, up into the smoke. "I'm not seeing cyanosis on either one of them. They've got to be breathing."  
he added. "Let's go."

The two fully geared firefighters heard Battalion 12 organizing their new rescue priority around the one Kelly and Stoker were managing, in stereo, from their cranked volume handi talkies. The radio commands echoed eerily up the concrete flank of the hospital and echoed back down to them faintly over the sounds coming from the triage station around them. They were only slightly louder than the moans issuing from the walking wounded lined up by category along the cafeteria wall.

Soon, ironically, Truck 226 pulled up and Roy and Brice were met with a familiar sight leaping off the rear bumper.

It was the rookie who had "returned" Boot. "Hey,  
51.. " the young curly haired man shouted. "Listen.  
Sorry about earlier. I- I didn't know what your mutt was up to. I'll do everything I can to get your man down from there as fast as I can. Don't you worry. ." and he began to rapidly place the anchor plates down on the dusty asphalt for the truck's descending stabilizer legs.

"Forget it, kid.." Roy grinned as best he could. "I'll be the first to admit that Boot DOES get annoying when he's on full bark and tug mode."

Right then, Truck 226's captain jogged up. He noted the air tanks Brice and Roy were using and he frowned.  
"No one told me jet fumes were blowing downwind into the triage area.."

"I think they were too busy to realize that, Cap." DeSoto said, throwing a hand at all the frantic doctors and nurses working on the rows of patients stretched out in between all the tipped over dining tables and umbrellas.

"Changing all of that right now.." the gray haired captain promised. He toggled a talk button. "Truck 226 to Battalions 12 and 14. The wind's shifted southwards from the impact site towards the hospital and triage area. I recommend you set up a series of water curtains to divert the worst of the smoke and fumes away from all the patients inside and outside of Rampart. They're in a direct line of risk."

##10-4. Truck 226. ## came a dual reply.

Dimly, Roy heard Engine 8 being dispatched to his scene with three other stations as well as his own. ::I'll just bet Bellingham's on his way here right now if they've been freed to respond to us.::

Slowly, 226's engineer lifted the arching white span of the bucket's arm upwards from his place inside of it. He nodded with satisfaction when he saw Brice peel off his gloves to get the two demand valves set up for Johnny and the girl. The rookie firefighter insisted on those going up with them.

Soon, both the basket and the three firefighters in it, disappeared into the smoke. Unconsciously, Roy lifted his HT. "Squad 51 to HT 51. Radio check.."

Craig immediately replied back and his distant figure suddenly reappeared in a hissing gust and Roy saw him lift an arm in an affirmation wave as he spoke. ##Loud and clear, 51. Stand by for info. We're almost there. I can see them.##

There was a long pause, and Boot in Roy's arms sliced it wide open with an impatient frantic whine. "Yeah,  
I know how you feel, I hate waiting, too, boy."

Then.....

##Squad 51. They're alive. Carotids on both..## came Brice's relieved voice.

Roy let out the breath he had been holding and he joyfully shoved Boot into the squad before grabbing his gear out of the side compartments. He laid them on a yellow treatment tarp on a section of uncluttered grass. He knew he'd be treating long before the triage doctors even had a space for his two victims. He got on the biophone just as Engine 51 pulled in to begin setting up the water curtain to protect the triage area from the thickening chemical smoke.

Roy gave Captain Stanley an indication of who one of the victims was by tapping the number on his helmet. He immediately tempered that with a hasty thumbs up to Cap without speaking.

DeSoto saw Hank visibly relax.

Brackett replied to Roy's hail. ##Squad 51, Go ahead.##

Drumming relieved gloved hands on the squad's hood, Stanley nodded at DeSoto in a thanks for the news and then he scrambled Kelly, Stoker, and Lopez into support operations.

Roy did one double take as Bob Bellingham was carried in by Engine 8's crew on a long board. He wasn't even fitted with an airway underneath the oxygen mask. ::That's good.:: DeSoto thought. He saw the still and wounded paramedic placed on the grass in the line of victims classified as red tagged to await his turn for more aggressive treatment and further assessment. One of Station Eight's paramedics parked with him but soon automatically volunteered himself to monitor those victims in his same row without being told to do so by a doctor.

Dutifully, the medic dragged Bellingham's gurney into the yellow triage tagged line when the burly man awoke and began to ask him legible questions.

Roy sighed and replied to Dr. Brackett.  
"Rampart, we've a Code I and a little girl of nine from a previous rescue. Right now they're inaccessible but both of them should be freed in a few minutes. Please stand by."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the Base Station, Kel's face furrowed when he heard about the child. "Is this the girl from the factory fire that Joe Early handled earlier?## he demanded to know without giving out too much information over the very public biocom channel he knew the fire chiefs and L.A. were both monitoring because of the declared disaster level emergency they were all facing.

"10-4.." Roy answered.

##I'm getting her chart now..## Brackett affirmed and he turned to tap on the window for Betty, Dixie's stand-in.

"Don't bother.." said a voice near his waist. Kel whirled to see an arm slinged Dixie McCall in a wheel chair, sitting next to him. She nonchalantly held Megan's patient slate out to him with her good hand. "I took the liberty of grabbing this on my way in here."

"Dixie! Just what the h*ll are you doing out of bed?! Who let you loose?" Brackett boomed.

"Kel, do you think I'm stupid enough to even hint at that person's name? Besides, I didn't break your orders. My I.V. finished up just fine and my pressure's holding so here I am. Gimme..." and she wriggled fingers for a note pad and pencil.

Kel Brackett figured it out. "You sly little vixen. You turned your Ringers to wide open, to drain it faster, didn't you?"

Dixie merely blinked straight faced at him, not admitting anything.  
Then she said. "Now how could I have done that? You had both my arms strapped down."

Kel didn't even blink back. "Someone else did it then.." he started to smoulder.

"Ease off, Kel." she pleaded with a half whine of weariness. "That firefighter and little Megan both need us right now so just can it, Kel. Shut up and let's get to work!" she said just as brusk, breathing hard. But then she smiled and the faintest hint of pink flushed rapidly into her cheeks.

That convinced Kel as to the progress of her recovery so he gave her what she wanted sheepishly. "Glad you're back,  
Dix, we've missed you."

"Unlikely.. Now, has Roy given you any data yet?"

"Nope. Victims are still stuck high up." Kel said, checking the circulation in Dixie's fingers to see how his suturing was faring. "Any seepage?"

"Nope.." Dixie said, trying not to wince at the exam. "You did your usual thorough job, Doctor Frankenstein. Very neat rows. Looks like I was stitched up by a sewing machine,  
instead of by you."

Kel grin's split even further. "I aim to please.." he said, gently releasing her arm. "How did you know I'd need this?" he said, hefting the metal chart of Megan's.

"Oh, Kel.. I tried to tell you and Morton both about Megan. That's the whole reason why I went up to the fourth floor after the plane hit. Let me fill you in. Johnny's the Code I, so get boned up.  
That orderly who attended me, with you earlier in the Treatment Room, told me more about how Gage and she were trapped in their room by fallen scaffolding. Only one back hall leads out of their bathroom and that was the one..."

"... that leads behind the glass elevator shaft... hmmmm.." Dr. Brackett said thoughtfully. "There's also a supply room in there. Something must have happened to effect Johnny's reasoning ability or he'd still be in there holing up with Megan."

Dixie had an answer for that, too. "It did. There's a block long water curtain going up on the crash side of the building. I remember seeing those only used to divert toxic smoke away from people back when I was still training paramedics on ride alongs."

Brackett frowned, and toggled the switch. "Rampart to Squad 51."

##Go ahead, Rampart.##

"Just learned about the bad air outside. What are your victims'  
consciousness levels?"

##Both are out, doc. Brice and another fireman's got them on positive pressure ventilations assisting their own inhalations.  
Both have unimpeded airways, adjunct supported. They say no signs of laryngospasm is evident . Oh, and the little girl's still got her I.V. line. It's intact. Brice said Johnny's signature's on it marking it as a new bag. Uhh,..it's I.V.#2..Timed forty five minutes ago..##

"10-4. 51, I'm fore-authorizing you for 1 cc epinephrine, adult's, and .3 cc's peds if that condition develops in either victim. Continue to update me as your rescue progresses and notify me as soon as you have patient access. I'm assuming position as their attending M.D. I'll be faster than those assigned out by you in the triage area. If I'm needed by you and Brice, I'll be out there. Rampart out."

He sighed and quickly read Megan's patient information with a practiced flipping of pages. Then he leaned against the counter with the recording machine and switched it off to await Roy's next transmission. He regarded Dixie thoughtfully as she jotted down the last of his orders to Squad 51. "Just how did you know beyond just his and your guessing, that Johnny and Megan had gotten into that hallway? "

"The orderly went down to the security office and had them aim a camera onto the floor to look for biosigns on the tiles.  
They found some blood, and an arrow of coloring pens,  
pointing in the direction of the elevator shaft."  
At Brackett's puzzled look, she elaborated. "This afternoon,  
I sort of...snuck up there to check on Johnny by taking over some of Megan's lab work and saw that they were arguing over custody of a green pen that she had on the table. I just put two and two together.." she said bowing her head fractionally.

"I don't know whether to congratulate you or throttle you for leaving the ER twice, unannounced, during a crisis alert."  
Kel grimaced, waving Joe Early into the room to order him to take over as ER head while he went to rendevous with Roy.

"I did pay the price, Kel. I argued with a window losing a battle with a crashing airplane." and she lifted her splinted arm in emphasis.

Kel fell silent and brooding without anger. "Pain getting too much?"

"Nope.." she trickled instantly. "This one isn't an ankle. I can take an arm over a foot any day of the week. That time bothered me. This time,  
it doesn't." she said evenly. "Besides, what's my color showing you?"

Kel stroked her cheek in a brief show of affection. "That you're hungry.  
Go eat. I promise I'll call you the moment Roy calls back in. I'm clearing you for some oral intake. If you don't spill anything on my suture job, I'll forget you were ever AWOL." he said marking down his orders on the run sheet he pulled down from the file box next to the EKG monitor.

"Deal, I'll be back with some coffee just for you."

"Good luck. All the pots are empty..." he grinned without looking up. "As of three hours ago."

"No, they're not. I know all the hiding places.  
I'll do some acting as the poor hurt head nurse and beg some off the student squirrelers."

The last part of her sentence was punctuated by the sound of a fast opening door onto the busy ER.  
Kel thought. ::Oh no she doesn't:  
"Hey!" Kel yelled after Dix, holding the glass door of the base station open so that he could see her retreating back. "You forgot your wheel chair.. And why don't you fess up and tell us doctors about those hiding places..?"

"Nurses autonomy.. Live with it and accept that you're simply SOL, doctor." her voice floated sweetly back to him. "Thanks for lifting my chow restriction,  
I'm starving!"

Kel launched the empty wheel chair out of the little transparent room and narrowly missed hitting Joe Early with it as he breezed in.

Joe didn't bat an eye and deflected the wheeling obstacle away from his knees with a foot neatly agile. "Problem, Kel?" he asked picking up the orders Brackett had just finished dictating.

"Head nurses and firefighters.. Who can live with them?"  
Kel said without elaborating further.

"Us, Kel. Can't live without 'em. Remember that when you're old and gray like me." Dr. Early smiled mildly.  
"They're your bread and butter for the whole paramedic program which you created, by the way, doctor." he said cheerfully.

"Don't remind me." Kel grumbled. "Better have someone get a forklift to pull Johnny Gage's chart from Records again.  
He went down while playing Batman on the side of the building."

"What's he doing out there?"

"He got a kid out of the only patient room endangered by that mess outside. His own. Smoke made him attempt his current idiotic stunt gone bad, and he's now hanging,  
out cold above triage instead of staying nice and safe in a supply room."

"Terrific.. I'll get Respiratory Therapy ready. Want a couple of bronchoscopy trays set up for your jump bag? I assume you are giving me the entire ER's reins while you go play Doctor Do Right out in triage."

"You guessed right."

Right then, a candy striper trotted into the base station alcove with a mug of steaming coffee. She went right to Kel Brackett with it. "Compliments of Dixie, doctor."  
and she sailed right back out again.

Joe melted. "Oh! That's real coffee! Where'd you manage to materialize that, Kel? I've been licking the dry coffee ring in MY mug for hours." he asked drooling.

"Go see, Dix, Joe. She's the head of a secret society of illegal java poolers."

"Huh?" Joe blinked.

"Never mind. Just look for the sky blue splint and you'll spot her if you want to get some for yourself."

"Splint?! She's hurt?" It was Joe's turn to get sharp.  
"Why didn't anybody inform me?"

"There wasn't time. Morton and I handled her surgery ourselves."

"Dixie was hurt enough for surgery?!"

"MINOR surgery, Joe. So don't get your shorts in a knot.  
A brachial tear from glass. Easily repaired. Now shoo.  
Go be my leader. "

"But.."

"Dixie'll tell you about it all herself no doubt before I'm through with this call. And she'll probably yarn about Johnny here, a bit, too. " he said, tapping the biophone radio receiver and the run sheet he had scribbled the firefighter's name onto. "Oh, and did I tell you that the child he had with him is actually Megan Miller? I know you saw her this morning but I'll be seeing her now out in triage after you take over for me."

Dr. Brackett wisely closed base station door on Early's scowling face as Roy's voice sounded in once more on hail, grinning like a banshee at the sight of his colleague absorbing the double whammy news shocks like a trooper.

He took a deep breath to fortify himself and flipped the recorder back on.  
##Go ahead, 51. I read you loud and clear.## Kel toggled, answering Roy's request for contact.

"Rampart, we've extricated both victims. We're getting both on EKGs on simultaneous telemetry. The adult male's via the defib paddles and the girl's through the Tetronix. He's tachycardic and I don't know why. He's got a weird V-Tach with a pulse."

##10-4, .....uh.. 51,....I know the identity of your Code I. Given his past surgical history, I'm ordering you to draw a red top for a cross match for a prelim RBC count. Then start a 500 cc D5W I.V. on him but keep it TKO until we've determined the cause for his arrythmia. I'll be right out there in three minutes after you send me those strips.##

"10-4. Transmitting both now on Lead Two.."

##Link established..## Kel confirmed.

He was still studying the EKGs when Joe showed up and parked Kel's favorite jump bag into the wheel chair still partially blocking the way into the receiving alcove.

Joe paused long enough to look at Megan's strip before he darted off to run the ER department in Kel's stead.

Brackett abandoned his post and hurried past the security checkpoint and out into the cafeteria commons. He pushed the wheel chair full of gear along with him and also a spare O2 upright apparatus that he found unclaimed against a wall.

It was still full with ample suctioning tubes and a cleverly added tracheotomy kit around its regulator.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Roy DeSoto didn't even reprimand Brice about where he placed Johnny and Megans' mutual stokes. They were lined up in the red row adjacent to where Bob Bellingham was lying in the yellow one. ::That's bending the rules a bit but if the situations were reversed, I'd be doing exactly the same thing by trying to get close.  
He's gotta know how his partner's doing:  
he admitted mentally.

DeSoto lifted the paddles away from Johnny's ribcage,  
his strip reading send now complete. Brice had already assessed Megan and found her the more stable of their two patients. Now, Craig was sweeping down Gage from his head on downwards, pausing only long enough to get in a fast pupillary check.

Roy decided to speed up finding out what was wrong with his partner by beginning palpation of his abdomen.  
His gloves were just about pelvis level when Craig shouted. "Freeze, DeSoto. That lump in his pocket may be a drug needle. His pupils are constricted and that with his odd tachycardia might spell atropine.  
He's smelling like anesthetic similar to a surgery store room."

How Brice smelled that over all the acrid chemical smoke leaking off Gage's blue jeans,  
Roy couldn't even begin to guess at. He just chalked it off as another quirky Brice talent.

"Johnny, self treated himself for sure?" Roy asked aloud.

Roy checked carefully in the suspicious pocket and he blinked when he indeed, found a .3 mg syringe packet full of atropine. Its needle was lacking a cover. Brice had just saved him from a nasty, unpleasant injection and needle stick.

"Yeah.. It's almost guaranteed. His blood pressure trend confirms it. Up there, we got not even orthostatic changes happening while we were securing him for lowering. B.P.'s still unmoving and rock solid at 92/58." he said,  
taking the stethoscope out of his ears. "That was very smart of Gage to use atropine. There was enough cyanide in that smoke up there to choke a horse. Our jacket indicators changed color right away."

Roy didn't miss Brice's quick glance towards his partner lying so close and yet so far away in the next row of victims.

He got up and knelt so that he was in between Megan and Gage's stokes. Then DeSoto said, "Go, Brice."

"What?" Brice stammered, still adjusting the I.V. on Gage while his other hand stuffed it under his shoulder.

"Go visit Bob. I won't tell. I'll just give you a heads up when I eyeball Brackett coming our way." DeSoto offered.

"Thanks, DeSoto." Brice said uncomfortable about breaking a rule. But that didn't stop him from scooting over to Bob and donning a new pair of gloves so that he could do a once over on Bellingham himself under the eye of the paramedic attending Bellingham.

Roy saw Brice take Bob's hand into his own as he spoke quietly to him, in tearful relief.

Right then, Gage twisted his head out from under the demand valve being used on him by an Engine 8 man, and spat out his oral airway, groaning.

Roy immediately bent down close to his face.  
"Johnny.. you're both safe on the ground. You gotta tell me. How much atropine did you use on yourself?  
Your rhythm's racing and we want to know why."

"Megan fir--" Johnny croaked, getting testy with the firefighter hovering above him when he tried to replace the oyxgen over his face.  
He swatted it away. "Megan first.."

"She's stable and breathing. No airway problems. Talk to me about it now, Johnny.."  
Roy said no nonsense.

"Ok, ok, ok.. Point Three. Once. Had to.  
*cough* I had a..*gasp* sh*tload of edema..."

"I heard the rales. You got em on both sides."

Gage moaned. "Oh nooo" he gushed in disgust. ".. that means aspirant pneumonia in my future for sure.. That means two weeks more time set for me in the hospital, Roy." he said in a high, complaining whine.

"I know.. just let the man ventilate you some more.  
Morgan. Switch to an ambu and help him on the in's.  
15 liters." he ordered. Then he smiled mischieviously as he moved over to recheck Megan's progress under her vents with a stethoscope. "Brice thinks your using that med saved your life, Johnny. Way to go, junior. "

Johnny shifted his weight on the uncomfortable mesh of the stokes and tried to grin.

The smile suddenly wiped from Roy's face. "Johnny, keep still, you're in un-specific V-tach. Brackett's on his way here now to personally check you out himself.  
It may be a chemical reaction from the smoke with your blood and your atropine shot because you've no splenic backup volume to counteract it."

Gage eyeballed the defib paddles in between his feet and shuddered. ::V-tachs can be tricky.  
And I've never coded. That's in Roy's history. Not mine.:: Johnny forced his brain to think quieter, calmer thoughts. "Is a blood transfusion in the works for me, too?" he whispered.

Roy's lips reclaimed his mirth. "No, probably just a course of sodium nitrate to burn the CN out of your system."

"Wish Boot were here. He'd make me feel a whole lot better about all this."

"He IS here. In the squad parked nearby."

Roy gave a nod to the nervous worried rookie from Truck 226 still hanging around. He tossed him the squad keys. "Here, 226. Why don't you go let him out for my partner here."

"Right.." said the curly kid eagerly. He took off so fast to do the task that his mask detached from the air bottle and thunked into the dust.

Boot scrambled over, retrieved the mask for the rookie, passed it off, and then promptly returned to Johnny's stokes, laying his weary head on his bare stomach with a wavering sigh of relief.

"Ok, Roy, quit biting your lip. I'm shutting up right now."  
Johnny sighed. "Pump away, Morgan. " he said when he saw that the Station Eight firefighter had finished setting up the new oyxgen equipment for him. "I'm all yours.." and he submitted to his assisted lung expansion treatment under the bag valve mask with loosely closed his eyes.

DeSoto saw Gage relax into a post atropine stupor.  
"That's right, sleep and you'll wake up on a nice comfortable bed later tonight. I promise."

A snore peeled out from under the ventilation mask.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Turning heads alerted Roy to Brackett's vectoring approach.  
He whistled loudly so that Craig would hear him.

Brice slunk back like a combat soldier under fire to rise up at Megan's side in an immediate act of never having left as Kel wheeled his gear and chair next to them.

"Status?" he barked at Roy and Brice.

Both rattled off sets of vitals and treatment times and the new finding of atropine use prior to rescuing, in Johnny.

"Hmm, I'll have to have a talk with him about that later.." Kel said, resetting the paddles on Johnny's blood flaked chest to see how his heart was doing.  
"Working for now. But we're not moving him until most of these PVC's go away."

Roy volunteered information. "He's got receding rales on both sides, doc." he emphasized pointedly. "Those rales used to be loud ones. You know with that level of edema, untreated, he would've been a dead man half an hour ago.." he said brandishing the second unused atropine packet that he had pulled out of Johnny's jeans pocket.

"Maybe I won't be talking to him later about that."  
Brackett suddenly amended, pulling back Johnny's eye lids to see the extent of his smoke inhalation sleepies under a penlight.

Roy nodded with satisfaction.

Brackett and Roy both turned their attentions to the little girl.

Kel nodded to the fireman ventilating her on the demand valve and set his wheeling O2 apparatus next to him. "Switch to an ambu, like Gage's. It'll be easier on her alveoli if they've been burned by the smoke. Here's a peds BVM and mask. Is she still pulling easily?" he asked the man at her head.

"Yeah, doc. She hasn't been sick. I'm not smelling anything. Her voluntary rate's about 30 and only a touch shallow. I've been bumping her up to 36, while keeping everything I do light."

"Good. That'll drive out the cyanide a little faster and clear that fluid from her bronchial passages.  
Most of that is probably from the I.V. Johnny wasn't able to turn back down again before he passed out on that wall up there."

Roy nodded and absently lifted a sweat loosened EKG pad on Megan's side long enough to dry her skin with her cut away patient gown before replacing it back down more firmly. "I checked for infiltration on that I.V. site, doc. There's none."

"Well, seems even half dead, our Johnny's a star paramedic.  
His rappelling didn't even jostle Megan's I.V. out of that vein?" he asked again while he tried to awaken Megan with a sternal rub.

Roy laughed. "Not at all."

Brackett afforded the sleeping Johnny a grudging look of respect that he would never have given Gage while he was awake, just for Roy and Brice's benefit.  
"Roy, get that head wrap off Megan. I wanna see how responsive her pupillary reaction is on that oxygen."

Megan's face slowly scrunched up into pain after Dr. Brackett gave her the epinephrine Roy handed him that he had prepared on his earlier orders. He tried another rub on her breast bone and got an arm jerk.  
He deftly pulled out Megan's airway and the Engine Eight man got a working suction tube ready in case Brackett needed it .The fireman set his BVM in between his knees for a moment when the girl started talking softly.

"...Mr. Gage?"... Megan coughed.

"Easy, hon. He's ok. And so are you..." Brackett soothed.

Boot noticed the change in the child and immediately padded over to lick her face in encouragement.

Megan's sooty face broke out into a terrific smile.  
"Who's this?" she wondered.

"That's Boot. " Brice offered. "Mr. Gage's firehouse's mascot. He's the one who made sure we got there to rescue you two off the fourth floor."

"Good boy..." she said, reaching up shakily to pet his coat. "Good boy.." she coughed again, liquidly and that made Kel order the girl's assisted O2 to be continued.

Right then, the station 51 gang jogged up to sneak in a visit on their coworker like Brice had done with his partner, the Animal.

Megan's face burst into a wide smile at the sight of Chet Kelly. "Oh, you're Johnny's friend! Hi! *gasp*  
Don't worry. He's ok.. I took care of him real good.  
I gave him the shot and he got better fast."

"You did what, hon?" Kel Brackett blinked.

Megan's face fell away in sudden worry.  
"That was ok, wasn't it? He was making funny noises and his lips were turning purple. I just had to do what Mr. Gage asked me to do."

Dr. Brackett, Brice and Roy's faces all beamed.  
But Chet was the one who spoke. "So,.. we've a real hero in our midst." and he crouched down beside the little girl. He uptook one of her damp hands after shoving his helmet a little higher onto his head to loosen its chin strap enough to take it off in tribute to the child. "Anyone who saves my friend is definitely a friend of mine. Nice to meet you little lady.."

"I've jokes to tell you, mister. Mr. Gage said to memorize them for you."

"Jokes? I collect jokes. All kinds. But I think we oughta do that later until after you're all better. Ok?" Kelly suggested. "These folks here look kind of busy right now."

"Sure, mister." and Megan closed her eyes. "We can color later, too, with green pens cause they're Johnny's favorite."  
she added before drifting off again under the oyxgen mask.  
"Geesh," Marco remarked. "Gage is sure good with all the chicks. Even the little ones." he chuckled.  
"She's absolutely tickled with Johnny. A real friend for life.."

The gang chuckled.

Cap gestured and said. "Ok, break time's over.  
Move it out. We've got a water curtain team to exchange with. Roy, you and Brice can stay put. The prelim search's over scene wide and our smoke control is working well enough just as we are for right now."

"Find anyone from the airplane alive?"

Hank's face softened in sadness. "Fraid not.  
But there's good news. Only seven on the ground were killed. And then just these few dozen in here who got hurt."

"Thanks for the update, Cap..."

Hank started to herd his men away but Roy stopped him.."Uh,, how's Battalion 14 handling the Station Ten thing?"

"He's not, emotionally. But the chiefs decided right away that his hands were too full at the time to realize that unit's missing status as a possible casualty.  
Nothing official will be reprimanding him, except for perhaps, his own conscience. Besides, no harm's done. No one except Bellingham was anywhere near that truck when the jet crashed. And HIS lumps,  
Stoker tells me, are from a looting mugger."  
And he turned to leave.

Marco took charge of their mascot as they left.  
"Come, Boot. Good boy. Thanks for finding Johnny and that little girl for us. Come, on.. quit dragging your feet. They're all right. Are ya hungry?  
Thought so. Let's go get some chow and a long drink."

Lopez didn't even have to tug on Boot's collar to get him to follow him.

Before Station 51's gang was out of sight,  
Dr. Brackett had Johnny's heart rhythm stabilized from the assortment of drugs in his bag.

Megan and Gage were moved inside by Station Eight's crew while Roy, Brice and Dr. Brackett remained outside to treat those still awaiting care in the cafeteria.

Slowly, the rising column of acrid smoke and flames from the impact crater in the parking lot lessened enough to stop threatening them all and those watching from inside the broken windows of Rampart.

The sun was almost set when Station 51 was cleared of the disaster area for some well deserved rest and recuperation. They, as one of the original responders, weren't assigned to body recovery detail at any time that night, much to Chet Kelly's relief.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soon, it was four days later, and the stationhouse was pretty much back into its regular routine of responses.

Operations at the crash site and in that neighborhood continued without their having to become involved in them any further.

Then,..a commotion came from the vehicle bay.

Photo : A triage scene with ambulances and firetrucks.

Photo : Roy in an air bottle leaning over.

Photo: A triage tag.

*  
From : patti keiper Sent : Friday, March 26, 2004 8:49 AM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Above and Beyond..

....that got all the gang's attention. It was Johnny's voice,  
accented by a lighter, happy treble one. Chet bounced to his feet, abandoning his burger and he said, "Come on, you guys! I've waited days to meet Megan Miller officially, so let's get the lead out.."

Kelly scurried out of the kitchen so fast that his shoes screeched on the floor, leaving behind long, trailing black skid marks.

Marco hissed through his teeth. "Aww, Chet! Look at what you're doing to my floor! Cap,.. make him clean it up.."

"I will, I will, pal." he gestured with two hands diplomatically.  
"Just, let's go greet our little guest and find out why Gage's not still flat on his back at Rampart."

Lopez moped verbally but plodded after his calm, contented captain dutifully.

Brice matched Hank in cool as he, too ambled into the garage.

Megan was with Johnny Gage over by the side door, and with her was a white shaggy mop of a dog whom Boot immediately started barking suspiciously at from the kitchen doorway.

The white dog howled once that made Boot twist his head in puzzlement until the newcomer sank his chest onto the concrete in an invitation to play. Boot was won over and in a flash, the two canines were scrabbling happily, playing tag under the vehicles,  
in a chase, all the while leaving chicken scratch black marks all over Marco's nice and shiny, washed concrete.

"Cappp!" Lopez groaned in long suffering.

Hank's charming smile for the little girl fell into one of irritation.  
"Lopez, just what am I supposed to do here? Lasso them with a rappelling line?"

"It's a start.." Marco said, flailing his arms, trying to round up the happy dogs as best he could. "Come on, guys. Help me out here. They'll shred my wax job!"

He was ignored.

Craig Brice squatted down in front of Megan and offered her a handshake. "Hello, Miss Miller. Are you well?" he said over Marco's howls and the dogs loud gleeful barking.

"Oh, yes sir. Daddy came and got me out of the hospital yesterday and Mr. Gage was released on his own.. recom,.. recop.." she broke off, looking to Johnny for some grammar aid.

"That's reconnaissance, half pint."

"No kidding.." Cap said, his eyes asking volumes.

Roy crossed his elbows, smiling just the same, but not understanding Gage's glib comment either. All he knew what that Johnny was still suffering pneumonia and hiding it badly.

Johnny saw their questioning looks and elaborated. "Oh, it's gonna be the latest thing Dixie says. Home healing. You see, Dr. Morton asked for some volunteers for patients to go home a little early to recover. You only gotta do a phone check once a day to a doctor so he can see,..er. hear how you're doing. Heh. Anyways, Dix says that I'll just get better faster because I'm in more familiar surroundings.."

Craig's eyebrows rose. "In that bachelor heap of yours?"

"Brice..." Johnny hissed warningly with a smile to hide his insulted reaction. "It's a new program starting up in the hospital.."

"You're a liar, Mr. Gage." Megan said evenly from where she was sitting on the engine bumper and telling Chet all her jokes. "We were kicked out. For being noisy."

The gang laughed.

"Thanks, Megs. " he said sarcastically, like only one friend could say to another. "But I was kinda trying to..."

"..not tell the truth. I know. But that's sooooo wrong." she said sweetly.

"Yes,.. uh, ..yeah. I guess it is.." he stammered.

Chet suddenly let out a peel of mirth. Slowly, he circled Gage like a sargeant conducting an inspection,  
eyeing up the changes he was seeing in Johnny's manner. "Man, she's really got you, Gage, you know that? Are you jumping through hoops to try to become a decent human being for the first time in your life?"

"No.. I was just... just.." Johnny blushed.

"Keeping your friend happy, I know. I saw it. All of us did." he said as he cracked a toothly smile.  
"Right guys?"

Murmurs of agreement bubbled around the bay like a brook over pebbles.

Chet's eyes fell lower, eyeing up something new in Johnny's plaid shirt's pocket. "And what's this,  
might I ask?" And quickly, he snatched up a green pen that was only one of several sticking out of it.

Roy said, "Hey, that's the pen that Boot found at Rampart. I can tell by the tooth marks."

Cap and Marco and Stoker and Kelly were clueless,  
so Brice filled them in. "Johnny threw that down from where he and Megan were trapped the day of the crash so Boot would go get help."

Megan piped up from a three way tug of war she was in with the two dogs, and a rope scrap. "Yeah,.. I'm slowly teaching Muffin here how to do the same thing. "

"Muffin?" Chet eye's goggled at the large white sheepdog bullpenning around the garage.

Megan didn't hear him, but continued her conversation.  
"Those pens are Mr. Gage's lucky rabbit's feet now.  
He promised me that he would keep them with him for always so he wouldn't ever forget me."

Johnny's face blushed even redder.

Kelly dove in like a shark. "Aww, how sweet of you, Gage. Didn't know you had it in you."

"Yeah, charming." Cap grinned warmly.

Brice nodded a tiny bit, still all professional.

Roy and Marco just rubbed their lips thoughtfully,  
saying nothing.

Gage cleared his throat under the uncomfortable scrutiny. "Listen, Cap.. I got your phone call.. you know, about..." and he jerked his head over his back a couple of times in a particular direction.

"What's the matter, Gage? Sudden palsy?" Chet quipped. "Hey, Roy. I think you'd better check him out. He might be having a relapse of lung poisoning."

The gang rippled in giggles.

"Very funny, Chet. Now, Cap.." Gage insisted more urgently, adding fingers to his jerking head. "Remember?"

Slowly, Hank realized that Johnny meant Megan.  
It dawned. "Oh, oh oh..." he said, "That's right. My phone call. " and he cleared his throat knowingly. "I'll be right back." he said, smiling amicably, and he hurried off to his office for a moment.

"Great, Cap.. just...uh, great.." Gage mumbled.

"What's that all about, Gage?" Marco asked.

"Shhh.. or she'll catch on.."

Megan heard Johnny and just winked at the other guys when Gage wasn't looking.

"You know, Johnny. I think she's already caught on.  
Megan's sure is one bright cookie." Chet guessed.  
"I learned that the other day."

Roy just went into another direction to fetch a certain box from the mop closet that they touched only seldom and he set it down at their feet.

"Hey, that's.." Marco interjected.

"Shhh." Gage silenced him with a hand over his mouth.

Captain Stanley returned, wearing his captain's hat and gestured for everyone else to don their dress hats in kind and to form a line standing at attention.  
In his hands was a blue velvet hinged box with gold embossing. "Would you join us for a moment, Miss Miller?" he asked the child after they all retrieved their proper sized hats from the box on the ground.

Megan looked up from her game. "Oh,.. certainly.." she said, tossing the ropy shred away from her so the dogs chased after it, instead of her. "What's going on?"

"Do you see this, young lady?" Hank said grandly and opened the box. "This is a gold cluster, the fireman's medal of valor.  
It's the highest honor that we can bestow on anyone showing courage above and beyond the call of duty. And the Los Angeles County Fire Department would like you to have it."

Megan's breath sucked in and her eyes teared up.  
"For me?"

"For you." Hank said softly. "You saved the life of my paramedic the other day, remember doing that?"

"Just because I gave Mr. Gage that yucky shot?"

"Yeah, it was a yucky shot." Gage said. "Hurt like hel-- uh heck.. But I'm grateful.. Truly I am. And..this."  
he pointed to the medal and box in Megan's hand.  
"Is the only way I can show it good enough to you that's still allowable by the fire department."

"Oh, Mr. Gage..." Megan sobbed. "I don't know what to say.." she said, fighting back tears. "I've never won anything so valuable in my life before."

"That wasn't won, little miss." said Brice, "That was earned... Congratulations.." and he bent low to shake the little girl's hand. One by one, all the gang took and shook her palm, too, sweeping off their hats in respect as she made her way down the line.

"Oh,.. just wait until I show Daddy!" and she rushed off to the back lot yard where the little girl's father was waiting for her in an idling Grand Torino.

Muffin took off after his mistress in a cloud of white fur.

"Megan, wait!" Gage called out after her. "Don't you want to stay for some cookies and milk?" he asked shouting.

The girl was oblivious.

"Megan?!" Immediately, Johnny bent over into a spasm of left over chest coughing that didn't ease until the gang helped him into the kitchen with Stoker and Marco helping arm sling support him into Cap's black leather recliner.

Marco hastily handed him a glass of water.  
"Here, Gage. This might help."

"Oh, thanks, Marco.." and Gage drank it down in one gulp.

Brice asked Roy. "DeSoto. Should I go grab a BP cuff or a stethoscope so we can listen to his chest? That sounds like deterioration."

"I can get oxygen.." Stoker volunteered.

"Yeah, you go do that.." Cap insisted. "And grab the biophone, too."

Roy shook his head and dismissed the question with a short flurry of fingers. "Guys, guys.. He's fine.."

"He is?" Marco asked in amazement. "He still sounds like death warmed over to me. And them."

Chet wasn't buying Johnny's sick act in the least being firmly in Roy's camp, too. "Come, on. Johnny.  
Quit faking it. I don't think Megan's coming back so you can give up this broken wing act. I think, for her, it's a case of baubles over buddies, pally."

"Who's faking it? I'm a sick man here. Come on,  
Chet. As-pir-ant pneu-mon-ia. I know you can say it out loud and I know you know what it is. It sucks,  
big time." and he pitched over in another paroxym of huge wet coughing that made even Roy begin to doubt his first assessment, as Johnny's face began to redden up.

Brice's frown began deepening, too.

....until Johnny suddenly got better and straightened up with a mischievious grin. "Got at least some of you that time. Thanks for the chair, Cap. It's real comfortable.."  
he said, folding relaxed arms up and lacing fingers behind his wavy haired head. "Now I really feel like I'm back home again."

He barely ducked in time to avoid the sheer rain of kitchen towels and newspapers that came flying into his face.

FIN

-------------------------------------------------------

Photo : Megan with a white sheep dog in her arms.

Photo : Marco mopping.

Photo: Brice looking analytical.

Photo: Stoker Johnny and Roy with a green pen.

Photo: A gold fire departmental medal of valor.

Photo: Boot lying down in the garage.

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